Conclave (The Silver Ships Book 20)
Page 13
“And annuals from now?” the Earther captain inquired.
“They might become desperate and abandon their efforts to defend the established planets,” Ude replied.
“To do what?” the Norsitchian commander asked.
“Attack alliance domes and home worlds via the network,” Ude responded.
The Norsitchians stared openmouthed at Ude. Despite none of them having yet engaged the Colony, Ude had already become a respected member of the force.
Within two weeks of virtual training sessions on the outpost holo-vid deck, Ude’s command scored highest among the ten brassards. Thereafter, it remained that way.
The Norsitchian commander requested Ude train the other brassard leaders. When the leaders returned to their commands, their scores rapidly rose too.
Watching a unit leader’s training session, the Norsitchian commander thought, If your engagements with the insectoids are successful, Ude, perhaps you should have your own carrier command.
It did not escape the commander’s attention that a traveler lieutenant quietly watched many of Ude’s training sessions. That she was human meant he couldn’t easily read her expressions. Then again, the pilot rarely showed emotions. She simply observed Ude and his brassard in a dispassionate manner.
At this moment, the traveler pilot, Lieutenant Petra Havard, had flown as close to the dome as the terrain allowed. She slid her ship into a deep crater. Swinging the cargo shuttle ninety degrees in a quarter turn, she maneuvered the ship’s aft end until the controller calculated that there was barely sufficient room to drop the ramp.
Petra signaled the ramp down. Then her eight passengers scurried across the traveler’s deck and launched their multiple legs to cross space and attach to the crater’s face.
The ship’s controller transferred Petra’s message to implants and ear comms.
Eight of Mickey’s newest weapons climbed out of the crater. Immediately, they separated into two teams. Using rocks and small crevices, each foursome quickly and stealthily approached a launch tube.
In a recent tactical maneuver, the insectoids had taken to draining the shuttles of fuel, limiting the enemy’s ability to destroy the vessels with a timed plasma rifle.
Resistance forces had retaliated by using nanites to dissolve the ships in place.
Then the Colony escalated by employing weaponry at the base of the tubes. The emplacements were protected by doors of clear material that were impervious to the nanites.
Now, it was the Resistance’s turn to defeat the insectoids’ latest tactic.
Each shadow was armed with twin proboscises. In addition, the shadows carried improved controllers. They would not only act with greater autonomy; they could act in concert to achieve the assigned goals.
At the lips of the launch tubes, the shadow teams confirmed each group was ready. On a shared signal, two shadows from each foursome switched to tube feet and slipped over the edge of the launch tubes.
The shadows made their way down the faces until they were near the twin doors of the weapon emplacements. The controllers shared images of the weapons. It was determined that the arrangements were the same. Then the controllers made a decision as to the best places to make entry.
One shadow from each pair crept around the tube face until opposite the other. Another signal directed the four shadows to step lightly onto the clear doors. Applying minimum pressure, each shadow maneuvered to the middle of the target door.
The first proboscis extended. Its hardened alloy drill tip was touched to the door. Revolutions were kept at a minimum until tailings were visible, and then the speed was slowly increased. Within several minutes, holes were drilled in the doors, and the proboscises were retracted.
Next, the second proboscises were poked into the holes, and the entire containers of nanites on the shadows’ backs were injected into the weapon emplacements.
Mickey’s engineering team had set up an elaborate injection system. The insectoids’ weapons were of an unknown metal, but material had been collected from destroyed dome rings, and the engineering teams assumed that the weapons would comprise a similar metal.
The challenge for the engineering teams was that many shadow parts would be adversely affected by the selected nanites. Rather than redesign the shadow components, it was decided to construct an injection system of material inert to the nanites.
When the shadows emptied their nanites reservoirs, the rear ends of the proboscises were sealed by valves made from view plate. Then the proboscises were ejected into the weapon emplacements, and the shadows swiftly evacuated the areas.
All eight of the shadows scurried across the moon’s surface, using their previous routes, to return to the ship.
Petra’s helmet received the controller’s signal, as every shadow landed aboard.
Every trooper and crew member knew the SADEs’ calculated time for the nanites to work, but the Norsitchian commander chose to increase the time by fifty percent.
Ude had kept his counsel rather than point out that the extended time was unnecessary.
“Lieutenant Havard, the time has elapsed for the nanites to work. Engage the shuttle. Be careful,” the Norsitchian commander directed. Then the carrier’s controller sent the message to Petra’s traveler.
Petra had no need to be cautioned. Their carrier was the first to deploy Mickey’s twin-proboscis shadows. To date, there was no proof that the scheme would work, but Petra did have confidence in the SADEs. Nonetheless, she carefully slipped her traveler out of the crater, across the moon’s terrain, and halted the aft end adjacent to the tube’s lip.
The ramp was dropped, and Petra left her pilot’s compartment. The shadows scuttled to the side to allow her to reach the ramp’s end. She lay on her stomach and shone a bright light down the tube. Unfortunately, the shuttle hid her view of the weapon emplacement.
Petra retreated from the ramp’s edge, opened a container, and extracted a flimsy balloon of nanites. Carefully, she carried it to the ramp’s edge and threw it into the darkness. Then she hurried to her pilot’s seat and flew the ship to the next shuttle tube. Then she repeated her drop of the nanites bag.
If the new tactic worked, the weapons had been destroyed, and the shuttles were becoming a pile of material that was nonreactive to the nanites.
The next step in the assault would be to deploy a traveler over the shuttle tube, lower the next set of shadows and the troops, and enter the tunnels.
The bridge audience focused on the dome. They hoped to see the transfers of cargo loads cease.
“Why aren’t they stopping the journeys and evacuating?” a brassard leader asked.
“Lack of fear, as we know it,” Ude commented. “Commander Cinders said that the insectoids are more akin to human psychopaths. They’re focused on survival in black-and-white terms.”
“Meaning?” the Earther captain queried.
“The insectoids won’t abandon their tasks until the last moment. That will come about the time we breach the dome’s airlock,” Ude explained.
After a wait of nearly two hours, the Norsitchian commanders directed Petra to deposit a shadow and make entry.
Petra, who had waited near the second tube, returned her ship to the edge, dropped the traveler to just above the surface, and lowered the ramp. Then she signaled the traveler’s controller, which commanded a shadow to carry out the order.
This was another value of the shadows’ upgraded controllers. The SADEs were placing more emphasis on the shadows’ capabilities to act as troopers.
A single shadow leapt off the ramp, rotated feet, and made its way down the tube’s face. About two-thirds of the way down, the shadow turned on an infrared lamp. It was thought that the insectoids’ defensive measure
s wouldn’t detect the frequencies.
The shadow located the blast door panel and triggered it. The heavy door slid into the rock face, and the shadow peeked around the edge.
“Leave that shadow on station to report, Lieutenant,” the commander ordered. “Access the other tube’s tunnel.”
While Petra carried out the directive, three more travelers left the carrier and shot for the moon’s surface.
The first cargo model shuttle to arrive hovered over the tube where Petra’s first shadow had opened the blast door. There were a few anxious moments among the troops. Biologicals were wondering if the Colony’s tactics were ahead of them. Perhaps, the weapon placements had been moved. Perhaps, there was a secondary trap that was ignoring the shadows. Perhaps, they had only seconds to live.
Despite the fears, the troops quickly set up the tripod and line to descend into the tube.
Half of the shadows aboard the second traveler had already been deployed. The other half would enter the other tube, with the troops from the third traveler, if necessary.
Ude prepared to drop via the line. In his implant, he heard,
Petra didn’t expect a response, and she didn’t get one. Ude had a manner like that of Commander Cinders. She’d seen it when he engaged the virtual insectoids. When she’d asked him about the change, Ude had replied that it came from his time in the derelict colony ship. With Nata, he worked to keep up the spirits of the wild ones. Then, when it came time to forage for food, the action required a different demeanor.
Ude descended the line. It silently threaded through his harness motors. At the blast door, Ude signaled his motors to grip the cable. His connection to the armed shadows, which also peered into the tunnel, showed the way was clear of insectoids.
Ude signaled the twin-proboscis model to return to the surface. This variety didn’t carry the enlarged energy crystals and laser mounts of the attack shadows.
Dropping off the line, and landing on the mouth of the blast door, Ude signaled the twenty troops of his brassard to descend.
The Norsitchians were required to use the manual controls on their harnesses. The race had yet to adopt implants, but several prominent Norsitchians were hoping to change that. Their first order of business was to replace the bureaucratically cumbersome collective, which governed the race.
Ude sent the attack shadows ahead. He moderated their pace to allow time for the brassard’s first squad to descend and back them up. No insectoids were encountered in the airlock, in the following tunnel, in the connecting ring, or in the short tunnel leading to the airlock.
Opening a small pouch, Ude extracted a small vial and used a swab to smear insectoid blood on the panel, which opened the tunnel-side airlock.
The shadows climbed the airlock’s walls, and the troops crowded into the space. When the dome-side door opened, the troops were lying on the floor and aiming their Loopah weapons through the opening. Still there was no opposition.
Ude waited for the second squad to arrive, and he sent them to explore the lower level. When it was reported to be deserted, the squads checked the dorm rooms on the airlock level. They were vacant. In fact, Ude noticed that the rooms were immaculate, as if they’d never been occupied.
Dropping the ramp, shadows and troops rushed up it to find a deserted platform deck.
Ude chuckled heavily, and his squads turned to see what had amused him.
Petra’s traveler hovered just outside the dome. She was sitting on the ramp, with her feet dangling overboard and her arms across two shadows that had nested their legs to crowd next to her.
Ude waved at Petra, and she returned a Pyrean miner’s two-finger salute.
Turning to the console, Ude followed the SADE’s vid message on how to lock out the gates and eliminate the Colony lockout on the airlock hatch. He wasn’t the only individual aboard the carrier to possess the information. Ude’s backups for the processes were the carrier’s Earther engineers and crew chiefs, who also had implants.
In short order, the troops evacuated the dome, returned to their travelers, and made for the carrier.
In flight, Ude received a comment from the Norsitchian commander. He’d said, “An uneventful confrontation.”
Ude had the feeling that the commander’s remark had been a test. The grunt had signaled the commander had been satisfied with Ude’s response.
When the travelers were recovered, the carrier sailed for the next system. This encounter promised to be more exacting. The ring above the dome had been destroyed, but Colony shuttles had already passed through it and landed on the planet.
The decision was made to take on the dome first and then the planet.
Knowing that the insectoids in the prior dome had communicated to every other dome that the weapon placements had been circumvented, steps were taken to vary the approach to the three tunnels of this second dome.
Puzzlingly, nothing had changed. It was thought that the insectoids didn’t have an immediate counter for what the Resistance forces had achieved. Word arrived from the other carriers that the techniques first employed by Ude’s carrier were working for those forces too.
Once again, the insectoids abandoned the dome before the Resistance forces reached the platform deck. Then Ude programmed the console, and the forces retreated.
On the following morning, the travelers filled with troops and shadows.
Petra was disappointed that she’d been assigned to shadow transport again. She had a feeling that Ude had something to do with it, but she wasn’t about to bring up the subject with him.
The travelers plied the space between the carrier and the planet. They would transport two hundred troops, ten brassards, and hundreds of shadows planetside.
When Ude led his brassard off the traveler, the squad leaders immediately formed their troops. They followed a simple verbal command from Ude that directed a specific formation. It was a circle, with weapons pointing out, and Ude in the center.
Ude signaled the shadows to his location, and when they arrived, they ringed the troops, facing outward.
Not far from Ude’s location was the site of a shuttle landing. He chose to advance on the Colony ship and start the search from there.
The twin defensive ring had covered only half the distance to the shuttle, when a collection of grays and two-meter-long young attacked the troops.
The shadows eliminated all of the insectoids but one. Ude had killed a gray, firing in the gap between two of his troops.
Ude gazed at his brassard. Loopah weapons were now held at the ready, and the troopers’ eyes were wide open. It was apparent that a reprimand about preparedness wasn’t necessary.
Throughout the day, the brassards had two or more encounters every hour with the Colony. Breaks were taken on high ground, where the troops ate what had been packed.
As starlight faded across the planet, the traveler pilots collected troops and shadows. No shadows had been destroyed, but the Norsitchians had lost five troopers. None of the losses had come from Ude’s brassard.
The planet’s terrain aided the Resistance. Much of the continents were covered with either wetlands or open plains. The insectoids were averse to waterways of any kind, and the plains were inhabited by large herbivores that could easily stomp a red, gray, or youngling.
What remained of the land masses were small areas of dense vegetation. The troops concentrated their efforts on these several hundred locations.
“Something I don’t understand about the Colony, Commander,” a trooper said to Ude during a meal break on the third day of fighting. “This planet doesn’t seem like a good choice for the insectoids. They’re forced to occupy these few areas, and it appears that they’ve decimated the small creatures that inhabited these spaces.”
“I agree it doesn’t make sense,” Ude replied. “Comman
der Cinders told me that the planets where the Colony lands will surprise me.”
“What else did he say?” another trooper asked.
“The admiral and he believe that we can’t fathom the grand scheme of the Colony because the insectoids think differently than we do,” Ude explained. “For one thing, they don’t value the individual. The survival of the race is everything to the Colony. In that regard, they started landing shuttles on every planet that looked viable.”
“But they didn’t land anything on the first planet we saw,” a third trooper pointed out.
“That’s part of the puzzle,” Ude replied. “However, I think that dome was occupied later in the Colony’s expansion. By then, they had shifted their strategy to something new. They’ve learned that they might lose this war if they try to hold too much space.”
It was more than a month before the Norsitchian commander called a halt to the hunt on the planet. Few grays were seen anymore, and no reds had been spotted in four days. Forty shadows were tasked to clean the planet of insectoid young. The carrier would return to collect them within a quarter annual.
During the course of the next eight domes and six planets, Ude’s brassard would stack up an enviable record of kills, but, more important, he would lose only one trooper. The unfortunate Norsitchian stumbled during a firefight and had fallen into a shadow’s line of fire.
When the carrier headed to the outpost, the Norsitchian command had been reduced by fourteen percent, losing twenty-eight troopers. The commander suggested to Ude that he become the outpost’s trainer, but Ude politely declined.
After the Norsitchian’s debrief, Jess asked if there was anything the commander wanted to add.
“Yes, Commander Cinders,” the Norsitchian said. “When the sixth carrier has completed its duty at Re-Gen, I wish to nominate Ude as commander of the carrier’s troops, no matter who they might be.”
Before Jess could comment, the barks of nine Norsitchian brassard leaders, who stood at the back of the room, filled the air.
13: Pia’s Discovery