Progeny (The Progenitor Trilogy, Book Three) (39 page)

‘True enough, and a lot of anti-matter production especially.’

‘Well quite.  I doubt the security measures and auto defences on those facilities would present much of an obstacle to the Shapers, if that’s who they belong to.’

The comm. came to life with the synthesised voice of the Lord Protector of the Order of Void Hunters as the Nahabe made contact at last via an encrypted, tight-beam transmission.

‘
Churchill
, this is
Shadow in the Void
.  I will keep this brief.  Shapers detected around the brown dwarf, Nantou, five vessels in all.  We are also detecting a Shaper presence aboard the wreck of the
Constantine,
but no vessels within close proximity.  You are cleared to jump to the second waypoint.  Out.’  With that, the transmission ended.

‘Well, the Nahabe can see the Shapers, ma’am.  Their sensors work at least, even if ours can’t see anything at this range.  Do you think that the Shapers can see us?’ said McManus.

‘I’d put money on it,’ Chen replied.  ‘We need to play this very carefully as we move in to test our own instruments.  We can’t let the Shapers realise that we can see them, or else we blow our advantage.  But we can’t rush blindly in there.’

‘So we need to look as though we’re blundering into a trap without actually blundering into a trap?’

‘Yes, exactly,’ Chen turned to Ensign Goldstein.  ‘Helm, jump to the second set of co-ordinates.’  As the view outside was replaced with rushing darkness, Chen added.  ‘Of course, if the Nahabes’ sensors aren’t showing us everything then we could still be blundering into a trap, intentionally or not.’

Moments later, the
Churchill
and the two cruisers emerged once more from hyperspace, one thousand kilometres to port of the
Shadow in the Void
.  Like the Nahabe vessel, the human vessels emerged so that the mass of the planet Yushan would mask their position. Now that they were in close proximity to one another, sensor data began to flow from the gunsphere to the carrier.

‘Everything looks good so far,’ commented Lieutenant Commander Singh as he scrutinised his instruments, the screens coming alive with information.  ‘We’re getting a good, steady feed and the Nahabes’ instruments are able to see right across the system.  We’re getting clear readings from the gunsphere’s sensors up to around one hundred AU.  Five Shaper destroyers confirmed and I can see the nest of activity that the
Constantine
has become.  From these patterns it looks like one of the destroyers is acting as controller for whatever is aboard the
Constantine
.  It’s like watching someone pull the strings of a puppet.  I’d say we’d be able to easily distinguish ships that have or haven’t been taken over yet with this technology. It’s as clear as day whether there is a Shaper presence aboard or not.’

‘Admiral, we’re being hailed,’ reported Ensign Andrews.  ‘It’s the Captain of the
Constantine
.  Should I put him through?’

‘Shite, they have seen us!’  hissed McManus.  ‘What do you plan to do, ma’am?  Humour him... it?’

‘For now, yes,’ Chen replied. ‘Ensign, put him through.’

A middle aged man’s face, lined with lack of sleep and rough with several days growth of beard appeared in Chen’s HUD.

‘
Churchill
, this is Admiral Doyle of the loyal Commonwealth vessel
Constantine
.  Thank god you’ve arrived. I thought we’d die out here.  Requesting immediate evac.  Shapers took down our power plant and left us for dead.  We’ve been surviving on emergency batteries for days just to keep us warm and breathing.  I have around six hundred surviving crew, about two hundred of which are in need of medical attention.’

‘This is Admiral Chen of the
Churchill
receiving, we were dispatched to this system to undertake search and rescue,’ Chen replied.  ‘You say the Shapers disabled you and left?  Can you confirm whether or not they are still within the system?  With all due respect, I will not risk a suicide mission.’

‘Impossible to say,’ said Doyle.  ‘As soon as they re-enter hyperspace you can’t see them and without main power our sensors are useless.’

‘What about on board your ship, did they try to board you?’

‘That’s a negative,’ Doyle replied.  ‘They just left us for dead.  The ship’s so badly damaged that I guess they thought that it was useless to them.’

‘Okay.  We’ll start putting together a rescue mission, Admiral Doyle, but we’re going to have to tread carefully here.  You and your crew hang tight whilst we recon the system.’

‘Will do,
Churchill
.  Doyle out.’ The image of the
Constantine’s
commanding officer disappeared from Chen’s field of view.

‘Well he’s lying through his teeth and no mistake,’ said McManus.  ‘He’s one of them.’

‘He certainly is,’ said Chen.  ‘I had entertained the notion that perhaps someone might be alive on board, barricaded away from the rest of the ship, but I’m willing to bet that everything he said was untrue from the start.  We know that that ship has been taken over from our sensor readings.  Her crew may still be alive, but they aren’t human anymore, that much we know.  The Shapers will be watching our next move carefully to see how we react.’

‘So what do you have in mind, Admiral?’

‘We need to maintain the pretence that we’ve swallowed his lies.  Ensign Andrews, put me through to the
Appleton
and the
Dulles
.’

The two captains appeared within Chen’s HUD after a few seconds.

‘Captain Hardaker, Captain Trent.  As you are probably aware, we have been contacted by the
Constantine
.  Sensor readings from the
Shadow in the Void
and the lies of her commanding officer have convinced me that the vessel is now in Shaper hands.  We need to maintain our cover that this is a rescue op.  To that end, you are to scan this system with your vessel’s active sensors on maximum power.  This will give a clear signal to the Shapers that we appear to be looking for them, an effort which will of course fail.  Simultaneously, you are to begin tests of the newly modified hyperspace sensors.  Since these are a passive system, their use ought to be undetectable to the Shapers.  We will then compare our results to those obtained from the
Shadow in the Void
to determine the effectiveness of our equipment.’

‘Aye aye, Admiral, we’ll begin at once,’ said Trent.

As Chen watched, the two recon cruisers began to move out of the shadow of Yushan.  The two ships moved apart until the cruisers and the carrier formed the points of an equilateral triangle a thousand kilometres to a side.  It was standard operation procedure.  The greater baseline increased the effectiveness of the ships’ sensors when working in tandem.  Once in position, the vessels began to sweep the system with their active sensors.  Predictably, they found nothing save for the other human vessels in the system, but the radiation and hyperspatial waves emitted by the two ships shone out like a pair of beacons.  To any casual observer, it would appear as though they were searching in vain for the elusive Shaper ships.  Then, after a few moments, they activated their newly modified hyperspatial sensors.  Chen looked over at Lieutenant Commander Singh as the results came in, and saw him frown as he compared the readings from the human ships to those being provided by the Nahabe.

‘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.’