Invardii Box Set 2

by Warwick Gibson

  They had to backtrack twice, finding the way ahead caved in by ground ship blasts, but around the middle of the night they were able to exit at a point near to the Lyceum bunker. The little party moved cautiously up to street level.

  “Have you still got the entrance codes?” queried Fedic, as he scanned the surroundings.

  AldSanni nodded. There had been a growing closeness between the Lyceum brothers and the Sar’Sanni Reform Party before the Reaper ships invaded. Strategic information like these entrance codes had been shared by the leadership of the two organizations.

  AldSanni had been given the codes by ParapSanni, and they would be the only way in if the bunker was not inhabited. It would be better if the Lyceum brothers had taken shelter inside it, and could now provide access.

  Fedic led the little party in one last movement through the shadows of the city, and then they turned down a narrow, winding street to their goal. All around them the bulges and ledges of the Sumerian city stood silent. This was a one-story residential area, and had been left relatively untouched by the ground ship attacks. It was also perfect cover for the Lyceum bunker that lay deep underneath it.

  The travelers stopped beside an alcove in the wall of the narrow street, one of many that housed entrances to homes. AldSanni inserted a small memory chip into a hidden slot at the base of an ornate metal statue, and twisted it through 180 degrees. There was a soft click.

  Now they would wait. The metal statue would alert anyone in the bunker to the presence of visitors far above. The travelers were probably already being scanned from somewhere nearby, their faces appearing on screens in the bunker.

  A short time later the recessed section began to move. It dropped out of sight rather quickly, and an identical section moved out of the wall of the shaft and up to replace it. The six members of the little party stood quietly as they dropped toward the bunker below. Eventually the section of pavement containing the statue came to a halt. The doors to the bunker slid back, revealing a darkened room.

  “Step forward and identify yourselves,” said a voice, speaking slowly and clearly, and AldSanni led the others into the gloom. Then he explained who he was.

  “You have been identified from our records, FrereSanni,” said the voice. “Forgive us if we ask for more information about your traveling companions.”

  They’re being thorough, thought Fedic, approvingly. The Lyceum brothers were supposed to be more practical, and more open to new ideas, than the majority of Sumerians. If this was an example of their efficiency it would confirm that assessment. When the travelers had placed all of their items other than essential clothing on a trolley beside them, a door to the right opened. They were told to go through.

  On the other side a number of Sumerians were waiting to receive them. Fedic recognized engineers, administrators and officers among the group. It confirmed the diverse nature and interests of the Lyceum brothers. Several of the Sumerians were openly carrying energy weapons.

  “Welcome to Ba’Regan,” said a towering Sumerian at the front of the group. His dry, gray skin and large size was an indication of his great age.

  “I am PraktuParBrahmad, and I am privileged to lead the Lyceum brothers in Ba’Regan,” he said, bowing his head. “Or at least, what is left of Ba’Regan.”

  He motioned them to sit around the sides of the room. It was high-backed and oddly-angled seating by Human standards, but they settled as best they could to discuss the situation on Uruk.

  Fedic listened with interest, his linguist earpiece faithfully translating the meaning of the conversation. He soon learned there were many bunkers like this around Uruk, and all had escaped detection by the Invardii armada so far. He was even more delighted to learn that every one was now manned by local chapters of the Lyceum brothers.

  Fedic smiled as the earpiece translated the word as ‘manned’. The Sumerians were not men, but then he was sitting in a chair that was too big for him and sloped back at almost forty-five degrees, while his feet dangled in space. Who was the odd ‘man’ out here?

  It transpired that PraktuParBrahmad had always favored the ideals put forward by the Lyceum brothers, but only joined the organization after he retired. That was the only time when it had been politically safe to do so.

  Despite that, Fedic quickly recognized the old Sumerian as a natural-born leader. He would be a great help to AldSanni in developing a communications network around the planet.

  It seemed the bunkers were semi-autonomous, in keeping with the Lyceum spirit, but Fedic hoped they would all accept PraktuParBrahmad as head of operations on Uruk. It would be much easier to have a central point for Prometheus to work with, when it came time for the second evacuation.

  If they could find some way to link all the bunkers, some way that didn’t use communications the Invardii could intercept, then here in front of him was the network they needed to bring together the surviving Sumerians on the planet.

  Fedic settled back to think. The sub-space radio was undetectable, at least in theory. Would Cordez allow them to use it here? And how would the equipment to send and receive sub-space signals be smuggled around the planet in the first place?

  He was brought back to the conversation when PraktuParBrahmad activated a screen on the far wall.

  “We captured these images in the first few days after the invasion by the Invardii. The building in the center is the main Ba’Regan database,” he commented.

  The impression created by the large screen and the sound system was very realistic. It was almost like being there. Fedic watched in fascination as the bright, sunny day in front of the multi-level building was cut off by a ground ship moving in overhead.

  It was hard to remember how big these things really were, until you saw one up close. The long, black underbelly was almost as wide as the central database itself. Fedic had never seen one hover like this before, and it hinted at a control of gravitational forces by the invaders’ technology.

  Something was descending from the ship. An oblong box, something like the K'Sarth work vans, but much larger, came to rest in the square. One end of it opened, and several machines of different makes and sizes trundled out of the shuttle. Then they moved across to the database.

  There was a sudden flash from inside the van-like shuttle, and then a steady orange glow. A floating orange ball left the back of the shuttle and drifted across to the database, where the machines stood waiting.

  In a moment it had transformed into a glowing, orange, humanoid shape, before walking forward to the massive doors that led into the database. It considered them for a moment, and then stepped back. One of the machines rolled forward, and began to attach something to the doors.

  When it had finished, the orange shape stepped forward and struck the door in the center of the attachments. Bright fire flashed across the surface of the door, snapping off as quickly as it had begun. There was a ringing noise like a gong being struck, and the doors crumbled into rubble and dust.

  Fedic sat up. This was technology far beyond anything he had seen the Invardii use before.

  The glowing humanoid shape stepped over the debris and disappeared into the database. The machines plowed through the mess they had created, and following it inside.

  CHAPTER 18

  ________________

  PraktuParBrahmad turned the screen off. The image of the burning orange shape had affected them all, and a time of silence followed.

  “There’s more,” said the Lyceum leader, “but you have seen enough to get the general idea. When we checked the database later, under cover of night, every bit of information it contained had been erased.

  “We think it was copied first, and taken up to the Invardii flagship above the city.”

  Fedic knew Cordez would want to hear about this. He was stunned by what he had seen, and Cordez would be fascinated. Was that floating orange ball an Invardii individual? Was the humanoid shape a different form of the same thing? It was an odd, hybrid life he found incomprehensible.
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br />   Then a new thought struck him. The Sumerian database contained everything the Sumerians knew about Earth, including Earth’s location in the Spiral Arm.

  The destruction of the Sumerian empire may have been the original objective of the Invardii, but they would soon have realized they were facing a second enemy as well. When they looked at the information taken from the Ba’Regan database, they would know where that second enemy lived. Fedic tensed. He would sub-space Cordez as soon as he had a moment.

  PraktuParBrahmad allocated a number of the Lyceum brothers to help Fedic and AldSanni with their mission. More importantly, he told them of a ship that might be able to carry sub-space radios to the bunkers around the planet.

  Cordez had approved the use of sub-space technology on Uruk, though the brothers had been cautioned to keep the devices a secret. If the Invardii found out the Alliance had sub-space capability, they would change their strategies to assume instantaneous comms. On top of that the discovery might bring the Druanii to their attention. Druanii who were battling Invardii would have less time to assist Earth.

  The radios had come in on another flypast of the planet, in the same way Fedic and AldSanni had arrived. It was a much smaller parcel than the shuttle, and was quickly picked up by the Sumerians at RockHaven. Fedic would collect the radios in a few days if PraktuParBrahmad’s ship proved a workable option.

  The ship had been a recent invention by the Lyceum brothers. It had been planned after Saurok was attacked, and then built in a hurry before the enemy armada arrived. It had been completed all right, but was then caught up in the ground ship attacks. Fortunately there had been no real damage, and it lay in a large industrial workshop which had a collapsed roof and one end blown out.

  That night Fedic led a reconnaissance team to see if the Lyceum ship was salvageable.

  “I want you there, and you over there,” he said quietly, pointing the way. Two of the brothers picked their way across the debris on the floor of the workshop until they were in position. They were stationed on either side of the wall that had been blown out, and could see the night sky.

  “Cover the hangar door,” he said to the last two members of the team. There was little chance of danger approaching along the ruined streets of the city, but Fedic wanted to know if a ground ship appeared above them. They had used the underground pod lines on the way in, and emerged at an exit near the workshop. They had taken particular care to see they weren’t spotted from above.

  Beckoning AldSanni to follow him, Fedic skirted the worst of the collapsed roof and approached a strange craft at the far end of the hangar. It lay at an awkward angle on a pile of crushed beams, which suggested the beams must have once been its cradle. PraktuParBrahmad had assured Fedic the ship was solid – built for a wartime environment – and it did look like it had survived the ground ship attack.

  The strange craft had the odd shape of a starfish, with very short arms, and colors moved across its skin as Fedic moved around it. They looked like the changing colors that could be seen on an oil slick.

  Fedic grinned. He recognized stealth technology when he saw it. The triangular lines of the hull minimized echoes from scanners, and the surface of the ship would be able to take on the color of its surroundings.

  If he could pilot the damn thing, he could use it to get the sub-space radios to the nearest of them Lyceum bunkers. After that they could be distributed slowly throughout the network by the brothers themselves. It might take a while, but when the Alliance came to evacuate the remaining Sumerian population, Fedic was confident the people would be warned to be ready.

  Now he had to find out if the ship could still fly.

  He found the way into the ship on the side of the central hub. AldSanni saw the code slot beside it, and inserted the chip PraktuParBrahmad had given him. The door obediently slid to one side.

  The ship smelled of new machinery, spiced with the unpleasant tang of heat sealing processes and glues.

  “Talk about a new ship, AldSanni,” said Fedic. “I bet this thing hasn’t even been flight tested.”

  AldSanni nodded, and found his way to one of the piloting chairs up front, He sat down, and Fedic sat beside him.

  It was odd being on a Sumerian ship, even if it was made by the Lyceum brothers. Everything was too big for his human form, and the ceiling seemed wastefully high.

  Still, those things didn’t matter. If Fedic could power it up they would make a trial run to RockHaven on one of the following nights. The first task was to collect the sub-space radios that were stored there. Then he would have to do some accurate navigating to transfer the radios to the new resistance network.

  He would only have the luxury of one test flight, and that would have to be enough. The ground ships patrolled Ba’Regan constantly, and the Reaper ships kept a close surveillance from beyond the atmosphere. At least Fedic assumed they were – it was what Fedic would do if he were in their position.

  The first thing to do was check the derybonase batteries. The batteries were a form of protein capacitor built into the hull, able to store vast amounts of power and deliver it in a controlled manner.

  While the skin of the ship converted sunlight at a rate close to ninety percent, that ability wouldn’t be much use to them at night, and it wouldn’t be enough to power the ship alone. They would need the batteries charged from another power source if they were always traveling at night.

  Two of the six battery lights glowed green on the panel in front of him. Fedic breathed a sigh of relief. All the operating circuits showed as a ‘go’ also. His test flight of the craft was surprisingly short, though he made a lot of notes about its performance after he had settled back in the hangar.

  PraktuParBrahmad had been right – the ship had been solidly built, and had survived the ground ship attack undamaged. As long as they could make their way across the countryside undetected, they should be able to drop off sub-space radios at each bunker. They would also drop off some of PraktuParBrahmad’s senior Lyceum brothers to help establish the evacuation network. Fedic was confident the brothers could plan the evacuation of the planet from that point on.

  Fedic named the ship Recon Maiden, and its first long-distance flight took place on a black night, with the small moon of Uruk on the other side of the planet.

  The four Lyceum brothers to be dropped off around the planet stored their gear on the ship, and took their places at the back of the small cabin. Fedic and AldSanni were already seated at the two chairs that controlled the instrument panels.

  Motioning the Lyceum brothers into the g-webbing used for take-offs and landings, Fedic ran through the pre-flight sequence. He’d talked to some of the brothers who worked on the ship, and seen enough of the schematics to feel confident, but that was a little different to a long journey.

  When the ship was ready, Fedic eased the control ball up inside the odd gimbal arrangement the brothers had built to steer the craft. It was different to any control system Fedic had come across in all his years of flying. But he couldn’t complain about it. At least the ship had a manual control system. The brothers had quite rightly concluded that the navigation systems across Uruk wouldn’t work after the invasion.

  Fedic eased the control ball a little higher, and the ship scraped across the beams under it. He cursed the noise under his breath, and moments later they were free. This close to the ground motors compressed air inside an ionization field under the ship. It rode on an invisible cushion, and Fedic sent it over the workshop floor toward the gaping hole where the end wall had been blown out.

  He appreciated the planning that had gone into the ship. Silent and almost unnoticeable, it would convert to air jet when they were further off the ground. It wasn’t fast, but it left no heat traces. From above – as long as they flew no higher than treetop level – it adopted the colors it was flying over.

  My kind of craft, thought Fedic, with some affection.

  The first task for the Recon Maiden was to collect the sub-space radios from
RockHaven. That meant taking the shortest route out of Ba’Regan, and turning south.

  The ship nosed out of the end of the building, and turned down one of the wide boulevards that ran through squat factories and assembly plants. The skin of the ship assumed a charcoal camouflage, matching the dull gray of the night. Fedic had switched the forward screens to night vision, and he now navigated through a pale, washed-out landscape.

  At first he was on edge, checking passive scanners for heat signatures in the skies. No matter how good the Lyceum ship was, he didn’t want it inspected too closely by an Invardii ground ship. Once they were out in the countryside he relaxed a little. The Lyceum brothers had noted little Invardii activity outside of the main cities.

  The Recon Maiden made steady time toward Rockhaven. The ship wasn’t fast – it was built to hide in the shadows rather than outrun an adversary – and it was a little after midnight when they arrived at their destination. That was better than a week on foot, conceded Fedic.

  The transfer of radios to the ship went smoothly. With AldSanni eager to push on with the task at hand, Fedic made the trip to the first of the nearby bunkers before dawn. The ship eased into the designated city, and followed the detailed instructions they had been given to find the bunker.

  This one was overflowing with Lyceum brothers and Sumerians of all sorts that had been rescued in the days following the invasion. Once sub-space contact had been established with PraktuParBrahmad at Ba’Regan, AldSanni put in a request for much-needed food and supplies, and detailed what the bunker had surpluses of. The network around the planet was taking shape before their eyes.

  CHAPTER 19

  ________________

  AldSanni and the team spent the next day at the bunker as well. Fedic wasn’t entirely happy that the Recon Maiden had to be left in the middle of the nearest boulevard, but it camouflaged itself to match its surroundings. It seemed unlikely the Invardii would have any reason to look closely at it.