It didn't last. The two other killships had Voice of Pain in their sights.
Their primary fusion lances were far smaller than the superheavy versions fitted to the flagship, but they were still enough to rip through the forcewalls in a single barrage. Antonia felt a massive impact, as though someone had kicked the side of her workstation. She had to grab it to avoid being thrown out over the side.
The lights on the bridge flickered and dimmed. Half the holos went out. "Damage report," snarled Teresh.
"Forcewalls down, Het Captain! Port fusion lance offline, half the dampers are down. There's a reactor flare-up in the second core-hall."
"Sneck," Antonia cursed. "That will take the port drive with it."
There was another impact, a distant rumbling. On the holo, Antonia saw the long, curving upper surface of the ship boil apart along the port side, fireballs ripping up through the decks, torn hull-plating at the wavefront of a long, expanding debris cloud. Seconds later, the bridge bounced horribly under her, and her workstation went dead.
The holo flared out. "That's it!" she yelled. "All crew to the daggerships. Send the signal to Asagiri. Tell it to drop out of superlight and take the shoals on. And godspeed to you all!"
Teresh got up. "Admiral?"
"You're relieved of command, captain. I'll take Voice of Pain from here."
He reached out and took her hands. "It's been more than an honour, Huldah Antonia."
"Likewise. I'll not let Saulus have this last victory, trust me."
"You still have a fusion lance left on the starboard side. Don't waste it."
With that he was away, striding off between the workstations. Most of the bridge crew were already gone, the rest filing away. Some were stopping to salute her as they reached the forward hatches. As each one did, she returned the salute, as though honouring an officer of equal rank.
Gordia was already gone. The bodyguard had left without a word, something about which Antonia felt more than relieved. Any more goodbyes would have been too much for her.
A few secondary holos were still active. Antonia could see sporadic fire still coming from the hunger-guns. Technically sentient, guided by the dissected brains of convicted heretics, the weapons would continue to fire until they were destroyed or ran out of ammunition. They could do nothing else; rage and ravenous hunger was all they had left. The knives of the enemy had sliced everything else away.
The deck was shaking continuously now. The killships were hammering at Voice of Pain's exposed flank, ripping their way in to the fusion cores. Antonia made her way to the captain's workstation and dropped into it.
She felt a curious sense of relief. The bridge was empty, the battle-hymns silent. She sat there for some time, watching one of the secondary holos; sparks were drifting from Voice of Pain to the corvette Asagiri, far off to starboard. One of the killships started angling itself towards the corvette, but as it did so the smaller ship's drives flared, and it accelerated smoothly away. In moments it had opened up a jump-point and was gone.
A few sparks remained; the last daggerships. They would catch up with the corvette later.
Antonia sagged back. She had done all she could. The mutants' ability to ravage Broteus was down by at least three-fifths, and any reports of the incident would include the superdreadnought trying to stop them. Even if it all ended now, it might be enough.
After a time, the pounding began to die away.
Antonia had been in the captain's station the whole time, watching the remaining holos and hoping that one of the killships would drift within range of her fusion lance. She still had her hand over the firing key when an alert started to sound on the board.
Antonia frowned at it, then snarled in rage. Voice of Pain was being boarded.
There must have been some daggerships aboard the stolen dreadnoughts. A squad of mutants were already aboard, in through the open landing locks. More arrived as she watched. Antonia swore floridly. If they took the ship, there was a chance they might turn it on Broteus. It would all be for nothing.
It looked as though she would never get as far as the backup plan. She flipped up a series of concealed covers on the board, letting the keypads beneath slide out and lock into place: triggering the auto-destruct sequence from just one station was difficult, but not impossible. It would need some rather intricate bypasses to get through the normal security locks, but Antonia knew those off by heart.
No mutant would command her flagship, not while she drew breath or anytime after.
Her fingers tapped at the keys, bringing the sequence up. Half the cores were down, which would make things tougher. The empty bridge echoed to the sounds of her muttered curses as she worked.
She was on the final sequence when the mutants reached her.
There was a heavy explosion from the side of the bridge. Antonia ducked reflexively and saw chunks of hatch-plating arc past her on tracks of smoke. She wheeled around as the whole hatch came off its runners, tilted inwards and slammed onto the deck.
Outside was smoke and the flickering of gunfire. Antonia felt a hammering pain in her shoulder, another low on her left side. The impact spun her away, out of the workstation. The deck came up and hit her in the face.
She cried out, once, and rolled herself over, hands skidding in her own blood. Grey-armoured warriors were spilling onto the bridge, reflective visors down. Antonia scrabbled at her belt, for the plasma pistol there, but one of the mutants was on her before she could draw it, batting the weapon away with the back of his hand.
He took her around the throat and hauled her up. Antonia felt her side tearing, but clamped her teeth down over the scream. She'd not give this monster the satisfaction.
The visor flipped up in front of her. Inside, a scarred, seamed face like the surface of an asteroid, heavy brows meeting over small, pig-like eyes. He snarled, wordlessly.
One of the others was at the captain's station. "Commander Parmenas. The human was trying to trigger self-destruct."
"Is it set?" He had to be the leader, this one. Antonia met his gaze, refusing to look away.
"No, Het."
"Disengage it, carefully." He leaned close to her. "So, filth. Trying to rob us of our prize?"
"What did he say your name was?" she hissed. "Parmenas?"
"Aye."
She grinned, feeling blood running down her chin. "Sounds like a cheese."
His face twisted, and he flung her away. Antonia felt herself spin through the air and slam down onto the deck. The pain in her side and shoulder flared, almost blacking her out.
The mutant was stamping towards her again. "And your screams will sound like music, bitch. When we bleed you."
He reached down to her. As he did, one of the other warriors shouted. "Commander. Jump points opening - twenty of them, thirty!"
"Finally," said Antonia. "My invitations arrived after all."
Parmenas brought his frag-rifle around fast, the pitted muzzle filling her vision. "A last present before we go, admiral."
Antonia kept her eyes open, waiting for the shot. Thus, she was able to see the staking pin appear in the mutant's head.
In one moment he was glaring down at her, his finger tightening on the trigger of his rifle. And in the next, he had a needle-sharp point of metal, as long as Antonia's hand, protruding from the side of his skull.
The short end of the pin, still glowing from the heat of its propellant, was sticking out of the other side.
Parmenas opened his mouth, made an odd coughing sound, then dropped to his knees. Antonia twisted away before he fell over forwards. His bulk could easily have crushed her.
The bridge was echoing with the sound of gunfire. Half the mutants were already down, scrabbling at staking pins that had appeared in their backs, their breastbones, their visors. The others didn't even have time to raise their rifles before a searing wash of cleansing flame struck them. Steam from their superheated tissues cracked the plates of their armour and jetted redly from within.
&n
bsp; Antonia slumped back as the last of them fell. She heard Gordia running towards her.
"Gordia, you've disobeyed a direct order," she slurred. The blood loss was getting to her. "I told you to go."
"And I told you that my place was at your side, Het." The shocktrooper reached down and began hauling Antonia away. "I'm sorry it took so long to find a weapon."
"The punisher fleet is here. Run, and you might make it away."
"We go together, or not at all, admiral. Now on your feet." She dragged Antonia upright. "Trust me, there are better places to be than here."
The Iconoclast superdreadnought Voice of Pain was destroyed eleven minutes after the kill-fleet arrived. The ship was already crippled, its dampers down, its weapons and drives off-line. It offered no resistance to the attackers, and broke apart after the first few barrages. Soon after, its cores went nova.
Three killships, one badly damaged, were with Voice of Pain, and although their ident-codes didn't conform to any kind of Iconoclast regulations, it was assumed that they were part of Huldah Antonia's heretic fleet. They were destroyed along with her flagship.
Later, a series of rumours swept through the Iconoclast forces, that a lone daggership had fled the Voice of Pain just before the cores went nova, igniting its light-drive and fleeing before anyone in the punisher fleet could bring their guns to bear. However, it is worth noting that Iconoclasts, for all their training, can be a fanciful and superstitious lot.
There are always rumours.
18. FRYING TONIGHT
Luckily for Durham Red, she was looking out of the Vampyr's view-ports as she entered realspace, and not checking her holos or instruments. If she'd not been paying full attention, she would have rammed a killship.
It was right in front of her, a wall of scorched metal racing to fill her view as the jump-tunnel flared to black on either side. Red snarled and hauled the collectives up and back, vectoring full thrust straight ahead in a deceleration that, dampers or no dampers, felt like it was dragging her eyes out of their sockets. Even then, she must have come within ten metres of the thing.
The flank of it dropped away, scanning like a steel landscape below her boots. It was a broken landscape, valleys and ravines carved into it by missile fire and the sun-hot blasts of antimat cannon. Shards of hull-metal tens of metres high poked up in every direction, and off to the side; a fountain of fire was torching out into space. Internal pressure was feeding the blaze, forcing everything loose out into space. Deck plating, equipment, crew... The killship was turning itself inside out.
Red found herself cold and sweating at the same time. In her own day, hyperdrives had been tuned so they wouldn't drop you anywhere near a solid object. It seemed that light-drives weren't so fussy.
The killship was between Red and Irutrea. She reached the edge of it, swung back onto her original path, and cursed under her breath.
She had seen some sights in her time, but the scale of the destruction was nightmarish. Irutrea was dead ahead, a blue-green ball filling half the sky. But Red could hardly see it.
There was too much scrap metal in the way.
Dathan must have taken the Iconoclast fleet down right where she was flying. The comms web was still down, and there was a good chance Enostine would have been fed the location of the Irutrea fleet. The Umbrae Nova would have shredded them with flayer missiles from jumpspace. Even though the Iconoclasts had more ships, they wouldn't have stood a chance.
Broken vessels surrounded her on every side; killships and corvettes and frigates shattered into every state of damage she could imagine. Some looked almost intact, while many, many more had been torn apart by missiles, carved by fusion lances and eviscerated by internal explosions. Debris, from tiny globules of once-molten metal to pieces of starship the size of skyscrapers, were whirling and colliding wherever she looked.
Corpses, too. Red tried not to look at those.
Ahead of her, and to port, Tisiphone hung like a misshapen moon, drives flaring. Dathan was still trying to get the planet-cannon into range. Red grinned wolfishly. There was still time.
To do what, she wasn't entirely sure.
There were ships surrounding Tisiphone on every side. Most were bunched to starboard, and firing continuously at a handful of grey splinters to Red's right: Jubal's fleet, centred on the flagship Persephone.
Xandos Dathan had managed to protect the slow, ponderous bulk of Tisiphone from them all the way in. Jubal was hammering the Umbrae Nova fleet with massed fire of his forward batteries, but hardly any shots were getting through to the planet-cannon. Those that did just ripped off bits of the outer plating.
Swarms of bright sparks swooped and danced around the larger ships. Vamprys and Banshees were dogfighting between the fusion beams. Red lined up on Tisiphone and gunned her drives. With luck, and if she kept her transponders shut off, she might get close enough to do some damage before anyone knew she was there. Who would notice one more assault ship in that mess?
Behind her control throne, the main drive shook and thundered. Tisiphone began to grow in her holos. Red saw a ship close to it suddenly change shape, breaking up around a huge, blue-white fireball. Tiny points of light flared around it as the explosion caught dozens of surrounding assault craft.
Watching that, Red missed the start of Tisiphone's transformation. It was only when a range alarm began to chime on her board did she glance over at the ship, and see the flickering lights that had appeared at the stern.
She blinked, wondering what she was seeing. The flickers had grown into a ring of sparkles, right around the shell, and this was creeping forwards, moving faster as she watched, heading for the prow. In its wake, plates of metal began to fly upwards.
Tisiphone was shedding its skin.
Red pulled the collectives over, hard. The planet-killer was surrounding itself in a huge cloud of shrapnel - every one of those big welded plates must have been fitted with an explosive charge. Now the charges were going off, in sequence, and the long, slender, loathsome prow of Xandos Dathan's artificial pulsar was nosing out from an expanding ball of spinning metal.
Red yanked the controls left, then right, seeing pieces of steel plate whirling past her on every side. Once she was through them, Tisiphone lay in full view for the first time, its drive-bells full of purple light as it ground its way forward.
It was opening up, spreading like a flower.
The complex assembly of rods and panels ahead of the collimator rings was spreading, unfolding into a huge disc. More discs were expanding ahead of it - she saw them coming up, one by one, until the primary dish finished building itself and blocked her view.
Tucked in behind it, invisibly small, was the control structure.
Red lined up on it until her target acquisition icon chimed, then triggered the Vampyr's main cannon in a long burst. The ship vibrated, a stream of energy bolts slicing away ahead of her.
The control structure shattered into whirling scraps of burning metal.
Red gave a whoop of triumph. The octagonal tower had exploded, the sides flung apart and away, crumpled pieces of deck and gallery and armour spinning out as a sheet of flame ripped the structure apart. "Yes! Game over, you bastard!"
She killed the last of the Vampyr's speed, and patched a call through to Harrow. "Jude, I got him!"
"Got who?"
"Who do you think? I just blew Tisiphone's control tower. Xandos is history."
"Hold on." There was silence for a few moments, a faint background chorus of shouted orders, chiming alarms, distant rumbles... "Holy one, I'm not sure Dathan even noticed. Tisiphone is still broadcasting as before." There was a burst of static, silence for several seconds. Then: "Forgive me. Persephone just lost gravity screens."
"What? Sneck! Jude, tell Jubal to pull back!"
"Holy one, there's no time. Tisiphone is charging. We can see power spikes... It raised a screen as soon as the shell fragmented, and nothing we have left will touch it."
"Christ, no." Red put he
r head in her hands. That meant she was inside the gravity screen, unable to get out, unable to help.
Inside. "Jude," she snapped, raising her head. "Put me through to Lahmi."
There was another burst of static. "Saint?"
"Right here, Lahmi. How are you holding up?"
"It is... something of a strain, holy one." The mutant's voice sounded breathy and wheezing. "There is a power drain. But I am all right, for now."
"Good, Lahmi. Stay with me. I need to know something about Tisiphone. Is there a control area inside the ship?"
"There is. The primary control deck is located there, just ahead of the collimator rings. The secondary deck is for observation and testing only."
"I think he's done testing. How do I get in?"
"I'll send you the schematics. Do you have a way of breaching an airlock security code?"
Red patted her pocket, feeling the bulge of the data-pick. "I'm sure I'll think of something."
The exit lock on the Vampyr wasn't compatible with that on Tisiphone: the planet-killer was far too big. Red had to use a vacuum-shroud to get across. Luckily there were no guards or crew immediately inside the airlock, otherwise Red would have been involved in a firefight while still wearing the shroud. And considering it had swelled up to balloon-like proportions as soon as she had sealed it, that would have been both difficult and highly embarrassing.
Red got rid of the shroud while she was in the elevator heading down from the lock. She folded it, stashed it in a corner, then unclipped both her magnums and made sure the charge was set to high. There wasn't any time to be nice, and besides, anyone on board Tisiphone right now was the kind of person who thought that irradiating a planet was a good thing.
There were too many of that kind of person around for Red's taste.
The elevator reached the end of its shaft, and the door slid open. Red stepped out directly onto Tisiphone's primary control deck.
It was a huge cylinder, twice as wide as the secondary tower and high enough for three circular galleries to be arranged up its sides. There were workstations set in concentric rings around the main holoprojector, more on the galleries. The centre of the room was dominated by a vast holographic globe, a 3D tactical map of Irutrea and surrounding space, and between the projector and the elevator was a control throne on a dais. Much as before, although this dais was built more like a ziggurat.
The Omega Solution Page 22
