Rebels
Page 26
Chapter 18 Chaos Theory
The main control room sat right at the top of the spaceport. The pinnacle of the tree like web of branches that radiated out from a huge metal trunk rooted deep in the ground below. The hollow metal trunk was split into countless levels serviced by powerful anti-gravity lifts. It was on its many floors that the commerce vital to the life of any planet had been conducted, fortunes made and lost, and settlers came in search of a new life. Each branch terminated in a series of landing platforms of various shapes and sizes to accommodate everything from bulk freighters to passenger shuttles, to scientific and military vessels. Under normal circumstances the branches were designed to funnel their various cargoes into the central trunk. Where they could be assessed and processed by customs, traded, repackaged and shipped onwards to their final destination. However these were not normal circumstances. The only cargo moving through the port were the prisoners of war Bryson had just finished shipping to holding cells a few levels below them on one of the immigration control levels.
Bryson stepped out of the lift and wandered casually over to the conference suite at the far end of the room laying his rifle on the plain silver metal table and pulled up a seat. The outer walls had a number of panoramic reinforced transparent nanopolymer windows set into them. The room itself was split into two levels. The conference suite sat on a balcony overlooking the lower level where clusters of terminals sat backing onto each other in groups of four or six. It was from these terminals that the vast bulk of traffic transiting through the planet would normally be controlled. A short flight of steps ran up from the floor to the upper level at either end of the balcony. This upper level housed the master controllers polished wooden desk which looked out over the conference suite onto the floor below. Behind it the largest panoramic window in the building gave unparalleled views of the planet below. On either side of the window where the walls curved away towards the stairs three terminals sat against it side by side providing workstations for the master controller’s senior staff.
“I never knew we were so popular.” said Lucy looking at the sensor displays on one of the workstations off to their right. “Three corporations fighting over little old us. I’m almost flattered.”
“Well as long as they’re busy fighting each other at least we don’t have to worry about a planetary invasion” added Bryson as he busied himself cleaning his rifle.
“It’s what happens if one of them gains the upper hand that worries me.” said David. “Even if we could hold off an invasion with Gaia’s tech, they’d simply blockade the planet and starve us out.”
“He’s right.” said Carol staring at the banks of lifeless terminals ranged across the floor below them. “Trade is our lifeblood. We need to trade to rebuild or were as good as finished anyway.”
“Your right, you’re all right. “ said Ford who’d been standing a little distance away gazing through the vast panoramic window at the planet below them. “We need to send a message that keeps the wrong people away and brings the right ones to us.”
“And how do we do that?” asked Carol.
“With Gaia’s assistance.” said Ford rolling his eyes into his skull and transposing his avatar onto the bridge of every ship engaged in combat around the planet. Much to the annoyance of their captains.
“This is Guardian Ford of Free Anobar.” he said as they frantically tried to block his signal and failed. “All vessels are instructed to stand down immediately, recall their fighters and vacate the system. We will permit you one hour for search and rescue to recover lost and injured personnel. Failure to comply will be met with deadly force.” he blinked and he was gone from their bridges and back with the people he knew and trusted.
Lucy shook her head. “Well at least we know they heard you between them they’ve just taken out three more of our dead in the water orbital weapons platforms for all the good they are. They’d never bring their heavy ships in this close if they thought we were capable of getting them back on line.”
“Well no one can accuse me of not trying.” sighed Ford as he moved across the room to where Lucy was standing.
He inspected the simple three dimensional representation of the battle she was viewing on the terminals that lined the right hand side of the balcony wall. Following the destruction of the orbital command centre, which had taken the planetary defence gird off-line, a number of the larger ships from all the fleets had drifted dangerously close to the planet. Ford took a deep breath and rolled his eyes once more till only the whites were showing. The planetary grid lit up like a casino in a pleasure dome, as the remaining platforms came to life and targeted the biggest ships within range.
“Wow you’ve just disabled the cruisers Pollux, Portway and Charleston, and the destroyers, Kingston and Pegasus. The rest of their fleets are moving out of range and here comes the retaliation.” said Lucy as multiple waves of fighters targeted the rejuvenated platforms, destroying several more and overloading Fords ability to link with Gaia as he tried to defend them all simultaneously. He rolled his eyes back down and released them. “It seems you’ve given the first battle group the edge over the Haldyne and the Vesperon the edge over the second battle group.” She added.
He smiled and wiped several beads of sweat off his forehead. “Not quite what I had in mind.”
Carol had come over to join them and was studying the sensor display.” I don’t like the look of that.” she pointed at large object on the screen moving deliberately towards the planet. “It was holding back, keeping out of the battle, now it’s coming straight towards us.”
Bryson picked up his rifle and strolled across to look over their shoulders. “It’s the biggest ship out there apart from the carriers. Do you think it can punch through Gaia’s deflectors?”
“Jasper.” said Ford communing with Gaia.