Mission: Eradicate (Obsidiar Fleet Book 6) by Anthony James

Author:Anthony James [James, Anthony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-10-30T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

The plan went awry.

The Cataclysm reappeared, thirty million kilometres from its starting point. The two Ghasts followed procedure and brought up feeds from the sensors. Blake paused, with his finger hovering over the deployment button for the Obsidiar bomb.

The Aranol was visible on the forward feed, like a sheer, dark cliff extending for an eternity above and below. Against it, the cruiser was nothing – less than nothing. A mote upon a mote. The Aranol gave off an aura of incredible power which produced a deep thrumming in the solid metal of the Cataclysm. Blake didn’t like to think how much Obsidiar was inside the Vraxar’s main spaceship to produce such a reaction.

There was something wrong. The SRT was meant to bring them to within a hundred kilometres of the Aranol. They were further – much further. With a sinking feeling, Blake knew.

“We’re outside their shield.”

His navigational screen was still populating with targets and there were dozens of them – spaceships and areas the battle computer classified as ground-based targets, whether or not it knew what their capabilities were.

“Our Gallenium engines are offline,” said Dunbar.

“Neutraliser,” said Blake. The backup Obsidiar core would keep things running. That’s what it was there for.

“Deploy, sir,” said Conway.

Time came to a standstill for Captain Blake. The choice was his to make. They were outside the Aranol’s shield, but surely there was nothing capable of withstanding the blast from an Obsidiar bomb. Except, he didn’t know. This might be the first and the last chance.

Hold the deployment. Order the SRT and find out what went wrong, spoke a voice in his mind.

With a certainty that went beyond mere hunch, Blake knew that nothing had gone wrong with the SRT. Somehow, the Aranol was able to deflect spaceships coming through lightspeed to prevent them from doing exactly what Blake was trying now.

We can’t have been the first species to try this against them. They’ve learned how to defend themselves against it.

He pressed the launch button for the Sorrow bomb.

> FIVE SECONDS

“Why aren’t they shooting at us?” asked Conway.

> FOUR SECONDS

> THREE SECONDS

A gauss slug the size of a building crashed into the Cataclysm’s shields. The reserve bar dropped to three percent and bleeped its soft alarm.

There might not be enough left in the Obsidiar core to activate the SRT, thought Blake.

> TWO SECONDS

“They’re powering up one of those towers,” said Dunbar.

“Missiles inbound,” said Conway. “Lots of missiles.”

> ONE SECOND

> DEPLOYMENT SUCCESSFUL

“Get us out of here!” shouted Blake.

Lieutenant Dunbar was waiting for the order and he stabbed a finger at his control panel. Blake felt the transit in his stomach and expected it to pass away. It didn’t and the feeling stayed for several seconds before it receded. He guessed what was wrong. The power gauge for the backup Obsidiar core flashed at zero: fully depleted.

“The fission engines only half-fired,” said Dunbar. “We entered low lightspeed and we’ve just been dumped out of it.”

“How far did we go?” asked Blake. “Quickly!”

The Ghasts were calm and collected. “We are seventy-two million kilometres from our point of departure,” said Hiven-Tar.

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