Grant was having a field day. It was like shooting ducks in a barrel. A state of confusion reigned within the Annunaki ranks, yet again surprise had played a major role in his success up till now.
On board the Serpitus battle cruiser the commander Gargius had already given the order to engage the ESG assault ships, and both cruisers were now moving in with all weapons’ banks blazing.
**
Tannacha and Nalater had seized their chance and bolted for the empty Annunaki assault vessel, as the two cruisers diverted the attention of Grant and his fellow pilots. Around ten minutes had passed, and on the other side of the world three large transports had broken water unnoticed in the confusion, and were safely halfway to Mars.
Grant ordered his squadron to break and head for Sub Sea One. The job was done.
The Annunaki assault vessel that Tannacha and Nalater had just boarded fired its engines and under the control of Nalater bolted directly upwards heading for the safe haven of the Nephilimis, cutting through the retreating ESG ships on the way without a single shot being fired.
When the assault craft had landed back on the Nephilimis, they both headed back towards the bridge, but just before they got there Tannacha stopped short at his quarters which were on the way, and without a word of explanation left Nalater to carry on alone to the bridge. Nalater couldn’t understand Tannacha’s strange behaviour. He seemed to spend more time in his quarters these days than anywhere else, the trip down to Earth Central to view it for himself being nowadays a rare event.
Still, there was work to be done. Nalater gave the order to re-group at the base within Dulles International Airport.
**
Back at the ESG Heathrow base Jumouk and Lee were going over what had just happened, and exactly where that left them, when all of a sudden Finney burst in. He had just been given the worst possible news.
The main Russian base, miles below the streets of Reutov, not too far from Moscow and with more or less the same lay-out as Earth Central, had been discovered by an Annunaki patrol. Even as they were speaking, it had come under heavy attack. The two Annunaki battle cruisers had diverted and were already there, the outer defences and weapons pods had been obliterated and Annunaki warriors were down to the second level, although they hadn’t as yet taken the control room.
Lee wrung his hands in despair.
‘Is there anything we can do?’
Jumouk shook his head slowly.
‘No, my friend, if they have penetrated the base that far I’m afraid they are lost. We must think of the bigger picture.’
‘We surely just can’t leave them to die. What about dispatching our battle cruisers?’
‘Sorry, Lee, this time their fate is sealed. Without losing everything, there is absolutely nothing we can do.’
Lee sank back down and put his head in his hands. This was really the first time the enormity of Earth’s dilemma had really sunk in.
Sure the moon base and the Katchinas were a loss, but they were a military loss and somehow that was different. This time there were civilian losses and he was well aware the Annunaki would not be taking prisoners.
The Annunaki assault on the Russian base was savage and involved a lot of hand-to-hand combat, with the ESG putting up a determined defence, but fighting a losing battle the whole time. The Androids were the only match for the Annunaki warriors, in most cases holding out remarkably well against them, but overwhelming numbers were now taking their toll. The control room and level two held out for six hours before the Annunaki finally suppressed all resistance.
Tannacha had again personally come down to study the lay-out and control room of the base in detail. Naturally, anything of importance had been destroyed and the computers’ hard drives fried, so that nothing was left to help the Annunaki in any way.
The third level had now also been taken, and Annunaki warriors were inside the fourth level, but experiencing no opposition from the human population sheltering there.
Tannacha wandered around the base at his leisure. Very clever, he thought to himself, the Dropas have a lot to answer for. His train of thought was interrupted by one of his commanders wanting to know what to do with the humans.
This was a quandary for him. He had expected, and prepared for, some kind of intervention from the ESG forces at Heathrow, and to his surprise nothing had been forthcoming. Tannacha waved the commander away while he gave thought to his dilemma, and what to do for the best.
He knew that he now had a distinct advantage over the ESG. All he had to do was to find where the underground bases had been hidden and that would be an end to this troublesome species.
**
33
Konoco and Marie were watching the approaching three transports. No attempt had been made by the Annunaki to intercept them, Marie assumed their departure had not been noticed by the Annunaki and that whatever distraction Lee had organised had worked.
They had no idea at all of the events that had been unfolding on Earth. Even the people on the transports were oblivious to the disaster in Russia, thanks to the radio silence. Marie had instructed the Androids on the Mars base via the computer to escort the arriving guests to appropriate quarters and settle them in.
There seemed to be a chain of command within the Android society. Some appeared to be taking command and issuing orders to others. One Android approached Marie and started to ask relevant questions as to the placement of the refugees, something which Marie was not expecting at all. It was a coherent conversation and the Android was obviously capable of thinking for itself.
This was quite different from Android behaviour on Earth, even Thourus, who was the most advanced Android on Earth. He still relied on logic and orders, while the Androids here appeared to have their own opinions and ideas.
Marie asked the Android if it had a name. It answered ‘yes’, it was called Pausanias.
The name, for some reason, seemed familiar to Marie but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Pausanias seemed to have everything under control, making requests to the computer for instructions to be passed on, even naming individual Androids with specific instructions. Marie soon excused herself. She could now quite understand why the Dropas were so undecided about the Androids. She still had a nagging doubt in the back of her head, however. That name, where had she heard it before?
Events were starting to overtake her. The three transports were getting closer now. Konoco was expanding the force field around the landing area. He didn’t know how it worked, but with the computers’ help he had found out how to make enough room for all three transports to land at once. Given the sheer size of the transports, this was an achievement in itself.
The Mars base was a hive of activity and the transports hadn’t even landed yet.
Marie made her way to the top of the lift shafts ready to help greet the people from the transports. Around about two hundred of the Mars-based Androids were waiting to usher people in the right direction when the huge transports landed. They would then be taken to the appropriate lifts and shown to their new quarters, given a hot meal and settled in. The computer would then give a virtual guided tour of the base and its facilities on huge three-dimensional viewing stands, two of which were placed in each dormitory.
This had all been arranged by Pausanias, and his higher-ranking Androids.
As the three transports set down within the force field, Konoco joined Marie in the assembly area in front of the lift shafts.
‘It’s going well, Marie, don’t you think?’
‘Thanks to Pausanias, yes,’ Marie replied.
‘Who?’ queried Konoco.
‘Pausanias - you know, the Android leader.’
‘He has a name?’
‘Of course he has a name. Didn’t you know?’
‘We never asked. As far as we knew they used numbers for identification.’
‘For ten years you’ve just used numbers to identify them?’
At that moment Pausanias joined them.
‘Pausanias, why didn’t you tell Konoco that you had a name?’
‘There was no need. The Dropas were quite happily identifying us with numbers. It seemed to work well for them.’
Marie was astounded. Even back on Earth Thourus had a name, although on reflection, not that many Androids did have names, just the higher-ranking ones.
Again events were starting to overtake her. The first of the new inhabitants were beginning to arrive, Marie smiled and went forward to greet them. After all it had been a hectic three days for everyone.
It was going to be a long haul getting everybody settled in and comfortable, although the facilities were second to none, and a huge improvement on Earth Central.
After the first couple of hours, once she had satisfied herself that everything was going smoothly, Marie returned to the control room with Konoco. The first thing they noticed there was that a whole new array of instrumentation had come online.
Marie asked Konoco tentatively if he knew what they were for. Konoco confirmed Marie’s suspicions that he didn’t have a clue; they had never been online before, in fact he hadn’t even known of their existence.
Marie was just about to ask Pausanias to join them when he appeared at the control panel and started confidently adjusting the screens. Marie joined him. For some reason Pausanias seemed to like Marie and Marie requited the feeling.
‘What do these controls do, Pausanias?’
Marie smiled gently as she put the question, not wanting to appear dim-witted.
‘These control the internal habitat. I’m adjusting them to suit the arrival of our new guests - oxygen levels, humidity, temperature and the like - we want our new guests to be comfortable, now don’t we?’
Marie was beginning to feel at her ease with the easygoing and, at times, almost humorous Pausanias. The Dropas were right she thought, there was a lot more than nuts and bolts to these Androids.
Konoco was at a different control station, one which looked much more complex. He had a puzzled look on his face.
‘Pausanias, could you look at this for me?’
Konoco had just rephrased the question, ‘What’s this?’
That was neat, thought Marie.
Pausanias joined Konoco at the control station. He adjusted a few interactive sliders, rotated his hand above his head and both he and Konoco were suddenly enveloped by a three-dimensional plan of the universe. Konoco was obviously flabbergasted. The Dropas had a wide range of technology but nothing on this scale.
Pausanias selected our galaxy and touched it with his finger. That section expanded until it showed just our home planets and space surrounding them. He then selected Mars and the visual display expanded to show Mars and its surrounding space.
The red planet looked impressive, and Pausanias stood spinning it slowly with his finger till he reached the point he wanted. He then touched that point on the surface of Mars and again it expanded and zoomed right in to the three transports sitting there, with a clarity that would have been hard to believe, unless you had seen it with your own eyes. Marie had now joined them at the control station again, amazed at the sight before her. Konoco was the first to speak.
‘Is it just a map, or can you track movement?’
His remark was not meant to be dismissive. He was in fact almost in shock. For ten years the Dropas scientists had been able to access only the most basic elements of the Mars base. Now within minutes it seemed as if a Pandora’s box was opening, but someone else was in charge of this hive of technology.
‘There are many things we will need to discuss, Konoco. The first is this. It is indeed more than a map, my friend. It is a complete defence structure for the security of the Mars undertaking.’
Pausanias’s whole persona had now changed from subservience to become almost authoritarian. Marie and Konoco exchanged glances. Marie felt it would probably be better if she took over the conversation. After all, she felt she had now built up an understanding with Pausanias.
‘Do you have weapons here, Pausanias? I mean some kind of pulse weapons for defence?’
Pausanias smiled, a wide smile as if he had anticipated the question and where it would come from. Marie immediately went on the defensive.
‘I don’t mean to be intrusive, but you have to admit this is all new to us.’
Any thoughts Marie and Konoco had that Pausanias could just be an Android were now quickly dismissed. Then suddenly it came to Marie, the answer to that question lingering at the back of her mind: like a bolt out of the blue, you don’t know why, it just suddenly comes back to you.
‘Pausanias, you’re named after the ancient Greek writer. He was first century or, no ... second century, he wrote books, geography, ancient geography.’
Pausanias looked impressed. Konoco hadn’t picked up on the relevance of this.
‘The name is over seventeen hundred years old, an ancient name like John and Mary. They survived the test of time thanks to the Bible, but also mainly ease of use. Names like Pausanias never survived past the first or second century.’
Marie paused for thought.
‘You built this base, didn’t you?’
Pausanias laughed out loud.
‘Not by myself.’
Marie and Konoco exchanged glances again.
‘You’re sentient, aren’t you?
‘We’ll cover that later if you don’t mind. First I must show you this.’
Marie noticed he hadn’t given an answer to the main question.
He was spinning the representation of Mars again, where little red areas were appearing on the surface of Mars. He zoomed in on one of the areas and a menu appeared. Carefully selecting differing options from the menu, he satisfied himself that the configuration he wanted was set, then pressed one more digit and the red spots turned green.
‘What just happened?’
Marie was now becoming concerned about to how she was going to explain all this to Lee and Jumouk.
‘That’s the defences around Mars activated now. We will be safe from any Annunaki attack or interference.’
Pausanias closed down the representation and headed towards one of the many annexes scattered around the perimeter of the control room. Marie and Konoco followed him.
**
34
Lee was still reeling from the loss of the Russian base. Jumouk seemed to be handling it better, even though there were probable many Dropas losses as well as human. There hadn’t been any confirmation of the fate of the occupants of the Russian base, but Lee was in no doubt what he thought would have happened. The Annunaki had no compassion whatsoever, so the chance of anyone surviving would have been extremely slim.
However, it wasn’t all bad news. The three transports that had left Earth were now assumed to have landed and decamped safely on Mars under the direction of Konoco and Marie.
Finney had been called out of the room a few moments ago by one of his commanders. He reappeared with two bedraggled figures in tow, one human and one Dropas. Apparently survivors of the ill-fated Russian base, they carried with them an ultimatum from Nalater. The total surrender of all ESG and Android forces within the next twenty-four hours, or the slaughter of the civilian population held within the Russian base. He had even been kind enough to provide the exact numbers of what were now hostages.
This was turning into a nightmare for Lee. If the Annunaki had already killed everyone, there truly would have been nothing he could have done, but this demand changed things in ways for the time being he could only imagine.
Jumouk led Lee into the corner of the room away from prying ears. Again it was Jumouk who came to Lee’s rescue.
‘You know, Lee, this doesn’t really change anything. We can’t sacrifice the rest of the world for one base.’
‘I know, but we must be able to do something?’
Jumouk shook his head.
‘The Annunaki know we won’t
agree to this. It’s just their way of twisting the knife. They’re trying to unnerve us.’
Lee turned to Finney and asked him to take the two survivors and get them cleaned up and fed. He was still running things over in his mind in a futile attempt to come up with a plan. In the back of his mind though he knew Jumouk was right.
Fiona had been struggling to hold back her tears. This was all too close to home for her. After all, if it hadn’t been for Jumouk, Lee and the daring evacuation at Earth Central, it would have been her fate too.
Battle for the Earth Page 13
