The Night's Dawn Trilogy Read Free

shut down over a period of a hundred picoseconds, producing a specifically
     shaped blast wave.
    At eighty-eight kilometres away, the antimatter pellets had annihilated an equal mass of matter, resulting in a titanic energy
     release. The spear of plasma which formed was a thousand times hotter than the core of a star, hurtling towards the
Beezling
at relativistic velocities.
    Sensor clusters and thermo-dump panels vaporized immediately as the stream of disassociated ions slammed into the
Beezling
. Molecular-binding force generators laboured to maintain the silicon hull’s integrity, a struggle they were always destined
     to lose against such ferocity. Break through occurred in a dozen different places at once. Plasma surged in, playing over
     the complex, delicate systems like a blowtorch over snow crystals.
    The luckless
Beezling
suffered a further blow from fate. One of the plasma streams hit a deuterium tank, searing its way through the foam insulation
     and titanium shell. The cryogenic liquid reverted to its natural gaseous state under immense pressure, ripping the tank open,
     and blasting fragments in every direction. An eight-metre section of the hull buckled upwards, and a volcanic geyser of deuterium
     haemorrhaged out towards the stars past shredded fingers of silicon.
    Combat wasp explosions were still flooding surrounding space with torrents of light and elementary particles. But the
Beezling
was an inert hulk at the centre of a dissipating halo, her hull fissured, reaction drive off, spinning like a broken bird.
    The three attacking blackhawk captains observed the last volley of
Beezling
’s combat wasps lock on to their own ships and race vengefully across the gulf. Thousands of kilometres away, their colleague
     scored a debilitating strike on the
Chengho
. And the
Beezling
’s combat wasps had halved the separation distance.
    Energy patterning cells applied a terrible stress against the fabric of space, and the blackhawks slipped into the gaping
     wormholes which opened, contracting the interstices behind them. The
Beezling
’s combat wasps lost track of their targets; on-board processors began to scan round and round in an increasingly futile attempt
     to re-acquire the missing signatures as the drones rushed further and further away from the disabled warship.
    The return of consciousness wasn’t quite as welcome as it should have been, even though it meant that Dr Alkad Mzu was still
     alive. Her left leg was a source of nauseous pain. She could remember hearing the bones snapping as her knee hinged fully
     open. Then came the twists of a shifting gravity field, far more effective than any torturer. Her neural nanonics had damped
     down the worst of the pain, but the
Beezling
’s final convulsion had brought a blessed oblivion.
    How in Mother Mary’s name did we survive that?
    She thought she had been prepared for the inherent risk of the mission failing, for death to claim her. Her work at the university
     back on Garissa made her all too aware of the energy levels required to push a starship through a ZTT jump, and what would
     happen should an instability occur in the patterning nodes. It never seemed to bother the navy crew, or rather they were better
     at hiding it. She knew also that there was a small chance they would be intercepted by Omutan naval craft once the
Beezling
emerged above their target star. But even that wouldn’t be so bad, the end should a combat wasp break through
Beezling
’s defensive shield would probably be instantaneous. She even acknowledged that the Alchemist might malfunction. But this…
     Hunted down out here, unprepared physically or mentally, and then to survive, however tenuously. How could the good Mother
     Mary be so callous? Unless perhaps even She feared the Alchemist?
    Residual graphics seemed to swirl obstinately among the ailing thoughts of her consciousness. Vector lines intersected their
     original jump coordinate thirty-seven thousand kilometres