The Ascendant Stars - Michael Cobley [91]
‘This is like the ship rams from ancient Earth history,’ Ash said. ‘Crude but effective … ’
The carrier had put all its thrusters into reverse but the black ship kept pace. Then something else happened – another black spike smashed its way out through the hull, clearly branching off from the first impaling spine. Then another broke out, and another and another until the carrier from its midsection to its prow resembled a grotesque, gargantuan pincushion. The black ship then used other spines to spear two of the battery ships: run through and fatally weakened, they began to suffer internal explosions which reduced them to torn, leaking hulks. The third had been under way when the deadly spine leaped out and glanced off its hull. Thrust drives ramped into full burn, it accelerated away but too late – from the black ship’s underside a tentacle of jagged radiance uncoiled, snaked out and engulfed it, dragging it back in so that two rim spines stabbed out and skewered it. Staved in and mangled, it burst apart in a paroxysm of fire and havoc.
It was like a signal for the carrier’s end. The branching spikes began to move, some rotating one way against the rest. Chasms were ripped open in the hull, more debris and bodies, more puffs of escaping air. Something vital, a refuelling station, perhaps, exploded, sending fire racing through a line of the interceptor berth decks, which touched off a string of secondary explosions.
Then the black ship finished it. At some point, that lethal central spin must have telescoped out within the carrier because the hull visibly tore open from the upper section down. Misfiring thrusters and blasting explosions forced the bows askew and the huge warship’s back was broken. The spike branches shrank, the long spine withdrew, then the black ship manoeuvred to the aft of the crippled Hegemony vessel and repeated the deadly assault, this time with two of its rim spines.
Fifteen minutes later the carrier had been reduced to half a dozen massive, ragged pieces, racked by explosions, drifting amid a cloud of pulverised wreckage and contorted bodies. The interceptors fought to the end, expending the last of their energy cells in useless attacks, and those not caught by the black ship’s force-field tentacles crashed themselves into its impervious black hull, final acts of pointless defiance.
At last it appeared that all resistance had been crushed and all life snuffed out – the black vessel had hunted through the debris field for lifepods, destroying those it found. Now, with all its spines withdrawn, it moved out of the spreading cloud of wreckage and towards the two Tygran-controlled ships.
Ash and his remaining officers had crossed over to the Silverlance during the carrier’s drawn-out demolition. Greg was watching the black vessel’s approach just as Ash entered engineering with a dataslate in hand.
‘More trouble, I see,’ he said to Greg.
‘Never a dull moment round here,’ Greg said. ‘But this time we’re ready. Hyperdrive is prepped for a fast exit, or if ye fancy a brief shot at suicidal glory all the weapons are online and charged. I’m assuming that the latter ain’t your first preference.’ Or even your tenth.
‘Today is not the day for suicidal glory, Mr Cameron,’ Ash said with a level smile. ‘Starfire-copy, ready drive for evasive jump pattern alpha.’
‘Jump pattern alpha ready – unidentified warship has altered course and is now accelerating away – it has transitioned to hyperspace.’
The change in the black ship’s behaviour happened as swiftly as the ship AI’s commentary, and took everyone by surprise. But Ash’s stern demeanour remained fixed.
‘Maintain battle readiness,’ he said. ‘Sensors at full range … ’
‘Contact,’ said the ship AI. ‘New vessel has appeared three point eight thousand kiloms off our lower port quarter – profile matches that of the Imisil heavy recon scouts previously encountered – incoming multistream signal.’
‘Screen it,’ said Ash.
The