Invardii Box Set 2

by Warwick Gibson

  That first trip to the planet had been to see the ancestral home of the Human race. It had come as a shock, some months before, to learn that a population of early Humans had been transplanted from Orouth to Earth 200 thousand years ago, by the long-vanished Rothii. The gesture appeared to have been an insurance policy against the resurgence of a galaxy-wide conflict that had been going on for over a million Earth years.

  That insurance had paid off. The warlike Invardii had come boiling out of the galactic core two years ago, and claimed this entire region of space as their own. It had affected Earth, and the Sumerian empire with its many colony planets, and the K’Sarth trading planet, and a number of other civilizations that didn’t yet have star drive.

  The Alliance had lost every encounter with the huge Invardii Reaper ships since then, and a number of the Sumerian colony planets had been made uninhabitable by their deadly ground ships.

  A second trip to Orouth had brought back 24 of the giant machines to Prometheus, and training of pilots for them had begun in earnest. The great war machines were sorely needed. The Invardii advance outward from the galactic core had so far been unstoppable.

  Regent Cordez’ Alliance with the staid Sumerians, and the diminutive Mersa from the planet Alamos, was yielding better results than anyone could ever have hoped. Unfortunately the Alliance was still generations behind the technological superiority of the Reaper ships, clothed in the plasma shields of suns.

  Finch headed over to where the rest of the pilots were gathered around Neuman Cagill. The head of the Solar System’s military forces had insisted on giving up his role as chief of staff for the destroyer class Javelins to lead the Valkrethi.

  Prometheus was now producing Mark VI versions of the Javelins, and some early experiments with unconventional weapons had been successful against the Reaper ships. Unfortunately, the Invardii had already developed a lines of defense against those weapons.

  Finch thought yet again that this war would be won by the side that adapted most quickly, and did it most often. But that didn’t take into account how far behind Prometheus was in the technology stakes.

  Finch walked Cagill off to one side.

  “What do you think of the research team’s performance?” he asked. Cagill blew out a long breath as he considered his answer.

  “I have to admit they’ve got something over the pilots transferred from the Javelins,” he said at last, “and I hadn’t expected that. I guess our pilots have a way of doing things by set routines, while the research team are more flexible in their thinking.

  “The researchers are more capable of doing the unexpected,” he continued, “and that’s proved to be quite an advantage.

  “We’ve also got spare Valkrethi available, if you think the risk of losing some of the research team is acceptable. We’re training up two squadrons of our top pilots with the Valkrethi, and that leaves enough of the giant machines for the research team.”

  “So you might be able to take them along when the Valkrethi go into action?” queried Finch.

  “I don’t like it,” said Cagill. “You know as well as I do that we need a chain of command, and we need pilots drilled to obey orders. One flashy civilian could kill themselves, and dozens of others.”

  “The research team aren’t like that, though,” said Finch gently. “I just need them to tag along from time to time, take recordings, do some tests, make assessments, you know the sort of thing.”

  “Yeah, I know,” said Cagill, still unhappy with the suggestion.

  “Is it really that important?” he said at last, looking Finch squarely in the face.

  “I’m sorry, Neuman, I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t necessary.”

  Cagill nodded, and started to walk away. “Godsdammit, who would have believed it, civilians on board!” he said, shaking his head.

  Finch had every confidence in the research team. Celia and Roberto had already unraveled critical secrets for the Alliance from their studies of ancient Rothii artifacts, and Andre and Jeneen were the technicians who made it all possible.

  The relationship between Jeneen and the much older Andre was a model of togetherness around Prometheus, and had only deepened since Jeneen had come close to losing her life using a Rothii mind-enhancing device in her work. Up until the time it had almost destroyed her, the device had allowed Jeneen to advance Human understanding in leaps and bounds as Prometheus strove to catch up with the Invardii.

  Two days later Finch declared it was time for the Valkrethi to stretch their space legs. Cagill decided that if the research team was going to be part of the Valkrethi force, he wanted them to be fully involved in this as well.

  Celia was given her orders, and she pulled the rest of her team away from their work and down to the cavern where the Valkrethi were stored.

  “Mount up!” ordered Cagill, as soon as they arrived. The research team could see the other Valkrethi had already been boarded by their pilots. The giant machines were stretching and flexing as the servo mechanisms went through warm up routines.

  The bonding of the pilots with their mounts seemed to improve over time. The Valkrethi were now beginning to look more and more like the people who rode in them. The composite hair on the giants shortened or lengthened as required, and facial detail became sharper. Shoulders filled out or waists slimmed down.

  Celia identified herself by a hand print in the mechanism just above her giant mount’s heel. Then she climbed the slim metal ladder that extended from its back.

  The space inside the pilot compartment always felt claustrophobic as the entrance closed behind her. She had a moment of panic before the helmet adjusted to her head, and the optics came on line. Now she could see through the Valkrethi’s eyes, and its vision was better than her own. A moment later the life support system began to circulate air through the helmet.

  Celia’s mount went through the same stretching and flexing exercises as the other giants. It was an automatic warm up and servo motor check built into each Valkrethi. Then she strode across the cavern to join the main group, the others in her research team behind her.

  The complex machine felt lighter and more maneuverable than it had in the games session two days ago. There was no doubt her mount was adapting to her, as quickly as she was adapting to it.

  CHAPTER 2

  ________________

  “Listen up, all of you,” began Cagill, once all three squads were assembled in front of his Valkrethi.

  “The mining engineers have fitted the cavern with a rapid fire ejection system, in case you have to get space-born while Prometheus is under attack. The ejection system is like an airlock, but it can have all of you out of the cavern within one minute, and clear of the moon’s gravity seconds after that. That means you have to hit the portal at around one every second, so get ready to concentrate!”

  There were various noddings of giant heads, while other heads flicked up to look at the circle of light at the far end of the cavern. The movements were so life-like, thought Celia in wonder. So Human. And the faces of the Valkrethi were looking more like their pilots every day.

  “There is no door, repeat no door, in the portal. It is a ‘no go’ area for anyone without a spray suit system or higher-rated protection against hostile environments.

  “The air in the cavern is ionized as it approaches the portal, and is held back by a force field. The portal exits into a deep fissure in the moon’s surface, well away from Prometheus. That will make the exit hard for hostiles to detect.

  “This is what you have to do,” said Cagill. “You run, you aim for the circle of light, you jump with your arms outstretched, and the ejection system will pick you up and fling you away from the moon.

  “Any questions?”

  There were none.

  “Good. Alpha Squadron follows Alpha leader, the research team follows Celia, and Delta Squadron follows me, in that order. Am I clear?”

  There was much nodding of massive heads, and a few ‘affirmatives’ on the common sub-space
link.

  “Alpha Squadron, disembark!” snapped Cagill, and a squadron of ten Valkrethi lumbered across the cavern, gaining speed as they approached the circle of light. The first of them launched itself at the center of the ring. It was picked up and thrown forward as it went through the exit.

  One at a time the others followed, and then it was Celia’s turn. Near the circle of light gravitysum switched off, leaving only the moon’s weak gravity, and each of her steps became an uncoordinated bound. She faltered momentarily, and swore at herself for not anticipating that. Then she launched herself head first at the exit.

  The ejection system picked her up and hurled her through the ring. The metal walls of the portal flashed by, and then she hit the vacuum of space. The main ejection phase cut in, and it felt like she’d been slammed across the heels by a giant baseball bat.

  The air whooshed out of her lungs as she sagged back inside the Valkrethi’s servo bay, and she came close to blacking out for a second. Moments later she was far above the moon and racing round the imposing flank of Neptune. She took several deep breaths to calm herself.

  “Activate homing pattern, repeat activate homing pattern!” snapped Cagill’s voice on the open band to all pilots. Celia fumbled for the sensor pad under her fingertips, then remembered this was a verbal command.

  “Set homing pattern,” she said quickly into the helmet, and her Valkrethi immediately veered off to the left and began to decelerate. She could see the others, twinkling in the weak light of the Sun, and came in beside the rest of her research team. It was the oddest of sensations, just floating there in space.

  “Got lost did you?” said Roberto, rather unsympathetically. She wondered whether getting her Valkrethi to kick his Valkrethi in the back of the knee would have any effect on him.

  “Cut the chatter,” said Cagill. “Team leaders report in.”

  When it was clear all the teams were present and correct, it was time to test one of the Valkrethi’s main functions – search and destroy.

  “Activate search function,” said Cagill over the common sub-space link, and Celia moved her hand a fraction to get 180 degree fields to come up on the optics, one for each eye. To her right there was a smattering of traffic around Prometheus, each of the ships marked as green friendlies.

  To her left were three gray neutrals, far apart in a straight line. These were their targets. The neutrals consisted of two disused freighters and a recently decommissioned science station. The research team had been allocated the freighter at the right-hand end of the line.

  “Independent action,” came Cagill’s crisp, clear instructions. “Go get ‘em, Valkrethi.”

  Celia moved her hand again, and a long sinuous thread appeared in her optics, connecting her and the freighter. This was a mechanism similar to the Rothii dipole her shuttle had used when she was part of an exploration party to the Mersa planet, but much more advanced.

  Something ‘greased’ the space between them, or so MacEwart had said, and Celia’s Valkrethi began to slide toward the freighter. It was a way of moving that had a negligible drain on her energy reserves.

  The acceleration increased exponentially, until in a flash she was half way to her target and decelerating sharply. She landed feet first on the freighter hull, and a dull clang reverberated up through her boots.

  Her optics showed the rest of her team approaching equally quickly. She reached down and punched a hole through the metal surface. Then she grabbed the edge of the hole and tore a sheet of metal off the hull.

  A blast of escaping air whistled about the massive form of her Valkrethi, to little effect, and a warning siren started up somewhere in the ship. The life support system on the freighter had detected the escaping atmosphere.

  She pulled herself feet first inside the hole she had made, and found herself in the main cargo bay. Gravitysum was still on, and she landed on the deck with a solid thump. She oriented herself by the freighter’s internal schematics, and strode quickly toward its bridge at the nose.

  On instinct she headed for the door out of the cargo bay, then laughed. Apart from being too small for her now, it was also an unnecessary waste of time. Celia powered through the walls and decks of the freighter without slowing down, leaving arcing power conduits and grotesque metal shapes behind her.

  In a matter of seconds she had reached the bridge. She swept away the star drive, navs and comms consoles with one hand. The freighter shuddered and died. It was now a lifeless hulk in the deeps of space. Weightlessness returned.

  The bridge suddenly shook from side to side, and Celia remembered that her research team were also at work on the freighter. She turned and forced her way back through the carnage she had created.

  She stopped short at the edge of the main cargo bay. The rest of the ship wasn’t there any more. Stars wheeled by as the half-ship turned end over end in space.

  Moving her hand fractionally she brought up the proximity sensors in her optics. It took her a moment to find the aft end of the ship. It was some distance away, and something was systematically shredding it. As she watched, the back half of the freighter disintegrated, and she could see three hulking forms in the middle of a cloud of expanding debris.

  “You won’t get invited over again if you wreck the place,” she said over the closed circuit, the corners of her mouth turning up in a smile.

  “But we do play well with others!” boomed Andre, and the Valkrethi on the right of the group raised a hand in greeting. Celia zoomed the optics in, and indeed a giant face closely resembling Andre’s was grinning back at her.

  Not long after the end of the training exercise they were back in the storage cavern under Prometheus, ready to go over their performance. They had all climbed down from their giant mounts and put them on standby.

  “Always aim for the most vital spot,” Cagill was saying. “The bridge of the ship if you can find it, though we don’t know if the Reaper ships even have one of those. But always go for the largest, most complex, or most heavily populated part of the target you can find.

  “Hubs before spars, bigger hubs before smaller hubs, flagships before Reaper ships, got it?” He was referring to the strange hub and spar construction of the Reaper ships inside their fierce plasma shields.

  There was a universal and vigorous response. All 24 of the pilots were still pumped up after the mayhem they had inflicted during the ‘seek and destroy’ exercise.

  “Ignore anything shooting at you,” said Cagill. “Your shields should take care of it. And remember that the quicker you dig yourself into an enemy ship, the quicker you’ll cease to be a target.”

  There was a moment’s silence.

  “When are we going up against the Invardii?” asked one of the pilots in Cagill’s group.

  “We don’t know,” said Cagill. “Cordez won’t use us until we can make a decisive difference. He thinks the less the Invardii know about us at this stage the better.

  “For now,” he said, “train hard, get to know your systems, practice thinking on your feet, and become one with your Valkrethi.”

  When the debriefing was over, Celia led her team back to their research labs. Every one of them felt the same ball of knotted tension in their gut. It was a feeling of promise, and a measure of barely contained eagerness. They knew they wouldn’t feel entirely normal again until they had gone into battle against the Invardii ships – and triumphed!

  The research team didn’t know when that would happen, but the fates that determined such things were already moving.

  A great many star systems away, on a medieval planet at the edge of the territory the Alliance called its own, strange things were underway. A squad of villagers from a place called Shellport were sailing for a desolate ring of islands called the Barrens, to investigate a report of strange lights under the sea.

  It would lead to the first military action by the Valkrethi against an Invardii base. But they would meet their enemy in the depths of space a number of times before that occurred.
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  CHAPTER 3

  ________________

  Menon beached his dooplehuel on a shingle bank at the back of the nearest island. Metris guided another of the sleek craft into the shallows beside him. Three Shellport villagers jumped down from the deck of each, and soon had the long, double hulls off the beach and hidden under branches.

  The hulls were made from the sea forest trees that grew in the freshwater tributaries of the Kapuas river, and the decks were made from the ribs and hide of the giant leviathan that beached themselves each year on the coast north of Shellport.

  The village had been built above the water and between the trees, on the edge of one of the deeper channels, where the villagers had placed their trading docks. The planet had neither tides nor seasons, and the only thing the village had to watch out for was the occasional mild flooding of the river.

  The men checked their equipment, and formed up in a traveling file. They were short, and broad, and bronze in color. Some had the green highlights of the western islands on their faces and shoulders, but most had the red tints of mainlanders.

  “So far, so good,” muttered Menon to himself.

  The Shellport squad had traveled overland until they encountered a southern militia stronghold three days ago, then requisitioned the two dooplehuel from a coastal village on Hudnee’s orders. Everyone on the small continent had heard of the head of the Shellport militia by now, and whether it was awe, or fear, there were no problems with the request.

  From there the squad had sailed around the coast of the continent until they reached the eastern wastelands. Here a number of rivers formed a vast knot of coastal swamp, deep and impenetrable, until it petered out in a circle of islands known as the Barrens. Noxious ooze from the swamps had worked its way into the shallow sea inside the islands, so that nothing lived there. Sparse, dead grasses covered the rocky islands.

  It was late in the afternoon, and Menon wanted to get a camp set up on one of the highest points before nightfall. He pointed toward the dry, rocky slope before them, and Metris scrambled to the top to get a view of their surroundings.