The Ascendant Stars - Michael Cobley [184]
The comm went dead. Greg shook his head and hastened onwards. Up ahead was a sliding section hatch leading to a junction of companionways, one of which led down to a lateral passage that ran straight to the port-side escape pods. But as he drew near he could see that the hatch was slightly canted to one side, and when he thumbed the open switch there was a whine, a tiny jerk of movement, then nothing.
He cursed and retraced his steps, hurrying now. He would have to go up a deck, pass through another section hatch then head down to the junction that way …
Well, I’ll not be stuck for tales to tell the grandkids when they ask what I did in the Battle of Darien – ‘Aye, well, boys and girls, it was like this – there I was, the last crewman aboard the brave ship Silverlance on its final doomed plunge into the planet’s atmosphere … and, eh, I kinda got lost on my way to the lifeboat … ’
He smiled, then realised that relating the Legion’s arrival would be the real crowd-pleaser – the details of that and the ensuing chaos were something that he would never forget.
First there had been the blue glow, lighting up the racks of dense cloud from beneath. And Greg had known that it was the Darien colony below and that the light had to be coming from Giant’s Shoulder, from the warpwell. The Silverlance and a handful of other ships, including the Imisil command vessel, had been about to launch a two-pronged attack on the huge Hegemony flagship, which was in stationary orbit around Nivyesta, the forest moon. The multi-channel shriek of interference and the sudden appearance of the glow had interrupted a few chases and skirmishes, but most of the ongoing pursuit and destruction of Darien’s dwindling groups of defenders continued.
The Silverlance and three Earthsphere warships were to provide the diversion of a frontal assault while the two remaining Imisil ships came in under stealth shields and attacked the flagship’s drives at the stern. They had begun the final approach, circling round Nivyesta, almost brushing the upper atmosphere, and the weapon-heavy Hegemony flagship was coming into view when …
When the holopanel with the view of Darien showed a stream of small black objects ascending from the glow in the clouds, which had turned into a strange swirling vortex. The Hegemony flagship was breaking orbit and ramping up its main thrust drives as it brought its nose round in the direction of the planet.
Orders from the Imisil commander had been to pursue with the aim of completing the planned assault. Ash had frowned but agreed.
Yet the long-range visual was showing that the stream of black objects had widened and become more densely packed. Greg had tried to recall what he had learned from the Zyradin and Chel – the ancient enemy of the Forerunners were known as the Legion of Avatars, not so much a race as a regimented civilisation zealously committed to a kind of union of flesh and machine, a cyborgisation of organic life, a deliberate blurring of the lines between organism and mechanism. The Forerunners had used the warpwells to defeat them and imprison them in the abyss of hyperspace. Released from that prison, they would wreak unimaginable chaos.
And still the rising stream grew, spreading out into milling formless clusters – until a Hegemony warship rushed in at them, weapons blazing. Heedless of the particle beams scything through their numbers, destroying dozens with every sweep, or of the missiles that vaporised scores as they detonated, the mass of them surged towards the attacking vessel, engulfing it so completely that no part of it was visible. Minutes later, the conglomeration of Legion cyborgs broke away like