The Ascendant Stars - Michael Cobley [109]
‘Even this isolated corner of the cosmos is not safe from the havoc of war with its sudden, inexplicable, relentless savagery.’
With the Imisil attackers either vanquished or chased off, the Hegemony carrier and its escort resumed their original formation and course. Then the image switched to a shot of a huge black ship as it approached the carrier, slowed and positioned itself at an odd angle to the forward section. There was a sharp cut to a close-up of the newcomer, showing a domed hull whose surface was an even curve of black random roughness. There were no features other than the strange stubby spokes that protruded all around its rim. The carrier had launched its fighters and was firing off its defensive batteries while the escort vessels joined in with immense blasts of bright ferocity.
Unaffected, the black ship then attacked. One of its rim spokes telescoped out, passed by the force shields and speared into the carrier’s upper flank and through to the other side. Julia watched in uneasy fascination as the huge ship was impaled like a monster on the lance of some knightly hero from a medieval romance.
‘How interesting – a Vor render-ship,’ said Reski Emantes.
‘You’ve seen one of those before?’ Harry said.
‘Only in the Construct’s archives,’ the drone said. ‘I wonder what it’s doing here in the prime continuum.’
On screen, the Vor ship was tearing the carrier apart. Explosions cascaded through the doomed Hegemony ship while the interceptors and the escort vessels focused their weapons on the Vor, creating a glowing storm of missile bursts and clawing energies. Then, with the carrier in pieces, the Vor ship turned its attention to the lesser craft and made short work of them.
‘We were unable to identify this ship,’ said Kaphiri Farag’s voice. ‘But its mysterious presence here contributes to a sense of impending dread. It is well known that the Hegemony has a sizeable fleet on its way here, and I can now reveal that Earthsphere has agreed to dispatch a task force in support. Rumours that the Imisil Mergence also has a fleet in the area have been strenuously denied by Imisil diplomats at every level.
‘The Human colony on Darien has already suffered a string of crises, assassinations, and the Spiralist incursion; who can tell what the consequences of more battles would be, especially if they involved the Hegemony and possibly the Imisil?’
The report ended with the Vor ship leaving the scene of destruction, vanishing into hyperspace with a faint twist of radiance. Julia stared as the picture switched to a shot of a vast cloud of wreckage set against a Darien almost occluded by shadow. If she had still been in her body she could have used that well-trained brain to calculate how quickly the debris would be captured by the planet’s gravity, and how soon the first fragments would enter the atmosphere, even where the largest might land.
‘Ah, good, at last,’ said the drone. ‘Got some hard data on your Talavera, verified sightings no less.’
Harry moved over to the holopanel that Reski Emantes was working at. ‘Hmm, a subspace gravitics monitor station is reporting a freighter escorted by two odd ships … ’
‘And here, a hyperjump emission study group’s open-access data … three ships on a course that aligns with Talavera’s previous known positions … ’
‘But then the trail runs out there,’ Harry said. ‘About thirty light years from the Brolts’ border with the Hegemony. You’ve seen our list of these five hundred target worlds – can you overlay them?’
‘There, all part of that dense swathe of stars, and Talavera’s course is broadly in that direction … ’
‘How do we stop it?’ Julia said suddenly.
Harry looked at her. ‘Stop what?’
‘Those fleets, this battle.’ Julia shook her head, overcome by an unfamiliar feeling, a longing for the world she had left behind, and a fear for its safety. Homesick, she thought. I’m feeling homesick. ‘Is there any way … ’
Harry was shaking his head. ‘Julia, when the Hegemony commits its forces, especially after it’s taken a beating