“Keep it occupied,” yelled Metris, seeing at once that the man had two impossible choices – to be smothered by the ooze or dismembered by that massive snapping head. Grabbing a solid piece of driftwood nearby, and wincing as pain stabbed through his damaged shoulder, he struggled back toward the knot of men around the attacking beast.
“Bait it,” he said to the man at the head of the circle, directly in front of the lunging head. This was a villager from Shellport, an old friend, who looked intently at him as he considered the strange request, and then nodded. The villager edged forward until he was ahead of the others, and drew back his sword, leaving himself open to the beast’s next attack. Sensing an opportunity, the grud-nak threw itself headlong at him, thrashing its tail in fury.
Metris stepped in at the last moment, and the driftwood blurred in a two-handed strike. He rammed it between the beasts jaws, and the branch came to rest at the back of its mouth. The grud-nak lunged at the man who had baited it, knocking him down, but it couldn’t get its jaws around him.
Metris threw himself forward, and hauled himself aboard its back. The creature started backing up as it tried to dislodge the sudden weight on its shoulders. The villager scrambled back onto his feet and got out of the way.
Metris found a long, thin ear slit just forward of his right knee, and stabbed down through the slit as the grud-nak reared back. He felt it still moving, and worked his blade deeper into its brain. Running on nothing more than reflexes, the brutish killing machine churned forward several body lengths before it collapsed and lay still.
The rest of the squad rushed forward to help the man who had been pushed down into the ooze. He was still struggling feebly when they got him on his feet, and once they had most of the muck off his face he started coughing and swearing in equal proportions.
Menon went for a closer look at the dead beast. Metris had driven his weapon right through the massive head.
“Do you want your sword?” said Menon, and the men looked sideways from the rescued squad member. The grud-nak lay inert in a pile of silvery-gray scrub.
“Leave it in the damn thing,” said Metris. “Maybe other grud-nak will see it and get the message!”
He was suddenly filled with a great tiredness.
He was glad Menon was there, and he felt a surge of appreciation for the help from a man he considered his mentor. Being a leader had been a bit more than he had bargained for today. When you were the in charge of a squad, the men were your responsibility. That meant you did whatever it took to keep them safe. Sometimes it took more than you felt you were able to give, but you gave all you had anyway.
The squad was very quiet on the way back to the dooplehuel.
Menon knew something of special significance had taken place, and the squad had come together in a new way. Metris had been their leader before this, they would have assured you of that, but now they were all bound together at a deeper level. The trust among them was complete.
CHAPTER 5
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“The report from Aqua Regis confirms it?” said Finch, hunched over detailed graphics of the Barrens taken from space.
“Affirmative,” said Saint George, re-running the sub-space log from Menona to make sure there was nothing he’d missed. “Menon gave us a clear description of a fusion power ring, and it has some sort of mass launcher we haven’t quite figured out yet.”
It was interesting, thought Finch, that the Invardii still used such basic engineering concepts in their interaction with the material world. Some parts of their technology were astoundingly sophisticated – the life support systems that allowed them to hybridize between the cylinder state and the orange plasma state for instance – but they were not so advanced in other ways. It was as if they were wedded to the idea of overwhelming size and unlimited power, and couldn’t see past it.
“Why are the Invardii mining on Aqua Regis?” he wondered out loud, and Bosun answered him from across the room.
“Hang on a minute, might have something on that for you. The geo program is just finishing its analysis of the area.” A few moments later he was rushing the results to Finch’s computer console.
Finch smiled to himself. It was good to have the old mining team working together again. He could even see Matsu, with Meeaniro beside him, working on computer models in the far corner. He wanted to know how their captive Invardii maintained its cylinder state, at the massive central processor in the corner of the room.
Finch chuckled to himself. Meeaniro thought she had captured a ‘demon’ when it arrived in one of the little Mersa’s inter-dimensional experiments. Then the Shellport squad had seen the transition to the cylinder state themselves, when they were spying for the Alliance at the Barrens.
Slowly but surely, he thought, we’re getting to know our enemy!
Finch looked out the window at the stark landscape of the Neptunian moon. Prometheus had been rebuilt bigger, and better, now the full weight of EarthGov, as well as the trading blocks, was behind it. But there were times he missed the old days, when life was simple and all the mining team had was themselves and one control center, perched on the edge of the opencast mine that had preceded Prometheus here.
“Sunken caldera,” said Bosun, pointing to the magma intrusion that bent and seamed its way from deep in Aqua Regis to a chamber just under the Barrens.
Finch examined the 3D representation closely as it hovered in front of him.
“Caldera, that’s a collapsed volcano, right?”
“Yes,” said Bosun, “and they can be of considerable size. The jagged edges of a collapsed caldera are showing up here as the islands of the Barrens.”
“That explains why the Invardii are mining there – the mineral content in the middle of it will be high. But I thought Aqua Regis didn’t have tectonic plates?” queried Finch.
“It doesn’t,” answered Bosun. “We’re still working on that one. Part of the answer comes from a meteor impact way back in the planet’s past. It left the crust thinner, and weaker, at this point.
“That couldn’t have created a volcanic ‘hot-spot’ like this one though, not without something else to help the process along.”
“So the meteor threw up the ring of islands we can see?” said George, who’d come over to have a look at the 3D representation.
“No, that came much later – normal volcanic stuff,” said Bosun. “The meteor strike was a big one, and a long time ago. It would have blown half the surface of the planet into space – it happened at a time when the planet hadn’t cooled much.”
His remote beeped, and more data downloaded into the file before Finch.
“As you can see, it actually reduced the size of the planet by about eighteen percent.”
They watched as the computer simulation showed a bright streak of light come over the horizon and plunge into an Aqua Regis without any seas, and with an atmosphere darkened by unbreathable gases.
A shock wave traveled out around the planet from the impact, and the huge hole that had opened up closed again, spewing material into space.
“The problem is,” said Bosun, “that all the material that was fired into space should have gathered together into a moon, but Aqua Regis doesn’t have a moon.”
His remote beeped again, and he downloaded more data to the file in front of Finch. An analysis of the magma under the Barrens showed a high concentration of super-heavy elements.
“That would explain it,” said Bosun, working his way through the data. “Meteor composition is often mineral rich. The impact from a meteor with such a high specific gravity would give the ejected material enough energy to reach escape velocity, so the material would escape from the pull of Aqua Regis altogether.
“It also explains why there is molten rock still present in the mantle this late in the planet’s history. There’s enough fissionable material down there to melt the rock around it – some sort of natural radioactivity.”
“Another reason why the Invardii would be inter
ested in the site,” said Finch. “It must be a mining bonanza under the Barrens.”
“Still,” he said, turning away from the 3D representation, “why are the Invardii mining planets?
“I would have thought they were using power sources more advanced than heavy elements, and more advanced than ours. Since they don’t like living on planets, why don’t they sift what they want from the gas clouds around a good, dense supernova?”
None of the others had any answers to his questions. It was only later, as he was discussing the matter with Cordez on the sub-space link, that he began to understand what was going on.
“They’ve got their backs to the wall,” said Cordez bluntly. “Whatever they use to make those extravagant Fire Ships go, and cloak them in the stuff of suns, they’re running out of it.”
He paused for a moment and looked away. When he came back to Finch over the sub-space monitor he was holding a list of items, and he looked almost cheerful.
“Aqua Regis is the fifth confirmed Invardii mining site,” he said.
“That means we’re hurting them. Hard to believe isn’t it, but I think we’re fighting them to a standstill. They must be getting desperate, forced to scratch away at the surfaces of planets for the resources they need.”
A broad smile slowly formed across his features.
“We, on the other hand, have two things going for us.”
Finch raised his eyebrows.
“On the one hand, we aren’t wasteful, we don’t do things for a grand show, we do them for effectiveness. And on the other hand, the Mersa system just got its third orscantium accelerator up and running this week.”
Finch could understand why Cordez was so happy. The Mersa on Alamos had asked what they could do for the Alliance, and Cordez had asked if he could mine their outer planets for the resources the Solar System was so short of.
Once that was underway, they had asked what more they could do. Cordez had given them the technology to build nuclear accelerators, so they could produce orscantium for Earth. The strange, space-altering properties of the super-heavy element were the only way star drive was possible.
Cordez had stored as much of the stuff as he could, once he understood the unstoppable threat the Invardii posed to Earth. Now his carefully prepared stockpiles were getting depleted. Now that the nuclear accelerators were up and running, those losses would slow, and eventually reverse. If this was going to be a war of attrition, Earth was not going to lose it.
“What do you know about the American Civil War, Finch?” asked Cordez jovially.
“Ah, North Am block, wasn’t it? Ancient history, not really my field.”
“The northern states won the civil war, and do you know why?”
“More men in the field? Better weapons?” hazarded Finch.
“No. The north had more canning factories.”
Understanding dawned on Finch’s face. Cordez was saying Earth had better canning factories – they could produce as much orscantium as they needed and send it anywhere to drive star ships.
As a planet-based people they’d become very good at using nuclear accelerators to create the elusive super-heavy element, because they’d had to. The Invardii might be more advanced in just about everything else, but it appeared their power source was running out, and the nuclear accelerators were Earth’s trump card.
“You think there’s real hope for the Alliance, don’t you,” said Finch, smiling broadly.
“Did you ever doubt it?” said Cordez, and ended the sub-space transmission.
Finch had a few things to tidy up after he’d read the report by the Shellport squad on the incident at the Barrens. The Shellport committee had put in a request with their report. The squad leader from the report had severe damage to his right arm, and another had a severely burned shoulder.
Their medical woman had packed the wounds with a native antibiotic – lacemoss they called it – but she said it was not going to heal properly, and they would be crippled for the rest of their lives. They were asking if there was anything Prometheus could do.
Finch thought for a moment. The original medical team sent to Aqua Regis was now back on Earth, and Earth had its own problems. The attack by the Invardii armada had decimated their defense forces, and killed or injured a much greater number of civilians. Healing facilities were stretched to their limits, regrowing limbs and trying to get cultured organs to take in the wounded.
The demand was stretching Earth’s medical resources as it was. The brains and nervous systems of the worst affected were in an induced stasis for months while their bodies regenerated, until they could be woken again.
“The Shellport squad put themselves on the line for us,” said George gently, when he put the question of help for the wounded men to him.
“Of course, but it’s not that,” said Finch, thinking of the amount of orscantium a ship would use to get to Aqua Regis, and the time the medical team would be out of action on Earth. He turned to George.
“Contact them for me, will you?” he said. “Tell them we can set up a unit at Shellport, but we’ll have to train them to run it while the wounds regenerate. We just can’t spare the medical people at the moment.”
“Will do,” said Saint George. “They seemed to handle our medical technology during the civil war with the Descendants of the Prophet okay. I think they’ll be able to make whatever we send work too.
“By the way, that little rod of Matsu’s worked a treat. Apparently the Shellport squad were about to be annihilated by two of the Invardii in their active state when they turned it on. It dropped them back into their cylinder states in an instant.”
Finch smiled. “The Invardii hybridization techniques are enormously sophisticated, but we’re getting a handle on it. Meeaniro has been a great help to Matsu with this stuff.”
George nodded, then added a question. “What did Cordez say to do about the Invardii base in the Barrens?”
“Nothing for the moment,” replied Finch. “When we destroy that base the Invardii will be all over Aqua Regis within days, and Cordez wants to be ready for them.”
George thought about this for a moment. Then he nodded his approval. A trap. That was just like Cordez.
CHAPTER 6
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Celia looked down at the hot, dry world of Ba’H’Roth from the diamond film observation window in the freighter. The Rothii had always preferred these worlds, close to suns, and she wondered idly how they’d managed with so little water. There were aquifers on the planet, deep down, but how had they got by until their civilization was advanced enough to access that water? The answer remained a mystery. Still, an alien race was going to have alien ways.
Sallyanne finished downloading something from the ship’s computer at a nearby console, and hurried off the bridge toward the cargo bay.
Finch had wanted to make this trip with the research team, but like the previous visit to the planet he had been bound to Prometheus by the urgency of his work.
Both the Mars and Asteroid Belt bases were again in full production, and destroyer class Javelins were taking shape in the giant zerogee factories at ever increasing rates. The Invardii had been stopped at Earth, just, and the front line was now back at the captured Sumerian home world of Uruk.
Their forces now numbered less than 400 of the giant Reaper ships, though they also had twenty even bigger flagships that had arrived from the galactic core. There was also activity in a dozen binary systems and red giants – almost certainly Invardii shipyards – and Earth couldn’t afford to waste time while the enemy rebuilt their fleet.
The extraordinary battle for Earth, in which Cordez had fought the alien armada to a standstill, had only bought them so much time.
Prometheus was now solidly committed to any research that might give the Alliance a technological edge, and that was why Celia and her team were back here, preparing to enter the central database of the Rothii archives again. The database lay directly under the freighter as it orbit
ed Ba’H’Roth, deep within the Midian Plateau.
“Everything we need is in the cargo bay,” said Andre, stepping onto the bridge of the freighter, “and the others are all there too. We’re ready when you are.”
“The freighter’s in geosynchronous orbit,” reported their pilot. “Go digging for diamonds in the database!”
Celia smiled. Geelong’s sense of humor and enjoyment of his work made him a favorite among Cordez’ personal stable of pilots, but he also had an attention to detail that made him invaluable. A wide grin creased his dark, aboriginal face. Next to Geelong, thought Celia, she must have the darkest skin on the ship, inherited from her Mediterranean background.
Then again, Sallyanne had a mix of Spanish and native blood from somewhere in the South Am block. Andre had a similar Mediterranean background to herself, while Jeneen showed a little buttercup color from an unknown Asian ancestry. Only Roberto could be taken as white-skinned. Strange circumstances had led his Nordic parents to resettle in Africa, late in the last century, despite suffering continuously from the African sun.
“On my way,” Celia said, giving Geelong a mock salute and leaving him and his navs and comms officers in charge of the bridge. Down in the cargo bay the others were waiting patiently.
Celia addressed them quietly. “When we enter the database we can expect the same procedures as last time. The sentinel program should have recognized our ship as we entered orbit, and will be expecting us to ask for access from the cargo bay.”
The others nodded, they had all been part of the previous expedition.
Celia hesitated, then spoke firmly into the emptiness of the cargo bay. “Celia D’Ahlio, commanding officer of Earth research team, requesting access to Rothii archives.”
There was a small popping sound, and a faint indication of static from somewhere behind her. She turned around.
“Access to Rothii archives granted,” said the voice she knew so well; an odd, breathy voice that was almost a rasping sound.
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