In the end Menon got a fire going near the entrance to the cavern, after Cagill told him that would be okay, and the apprehensive little group sat around it telling stories. They told stories about different planets, about different lives, and about their families, in the manner of soldiers before a battle everywhere.
Back at Shellport, all was not well.
“I want to see the battle for the Barrens!” said Hudnee doggedly.
It was the first day of a forty-day quadroon, and he, Daneesa, Habna and Battrick should have been discussing the governance of Shellport. Unfortunately, the meeting had degenerated into a domestic squabble between Hudnee and Daneesa. Habna seemed amused, and Battrick was pleased they’d moved away from the boring details of administration for a while.
Daneesa sighed. With Kanuk gone to train for war with the pale strangers, and the two girls enjoying the last of their childhood at Shellport with friends – and hardly ever home – she was more protective of her time with her husband than ever.
Still, he was determined to go, she could see that. It was one of those male things. What would men have to talk about in the evenings if they hadn’t been there at the great turning points in the life of Hud? She looked at Habna, who shrugged.
What could you do, sometimes the men were more stubborn than the male Ibek on the coastal cliffs, fighting for the right to mate until they collapsed from exhaustion.
“We need you here,” she tried, one last time. “The villages are prospering now, and without the Descendants of the Prophet to make rules for them, you’re the only one the people will listen to when they squabble about land, and old grievances.”
“Yes, well, that’s another thing I need a break from,” grumbled Hudnee, tired of the interminable traveling all over Hud to sort out everyone’s problems.
Still, that was not the main point, and Hudnee knew it. He was feeling his age, and a fresh smattering of scars from the civil war with the Descendants had only added to his aches and pains. He wanted to be a young man again, and be part of the action – even if it was just for one last time.
“I won’t be in any danger,” he growled, “you know that. There will be others going with me, and we’ll be watching the battle from a distance. What could go wrong?”
That was another thing, thought Daneesa. When you got them in a group they would sneak off to do what they wanted anyway.
She sighed again. Not that they were any different to the women, she had to admit. Damn this getting older – it made her so reasonable! What she really wanted to do was get mad at him, mad because she wasn’t enough for him, wasn’t a sufficient reason for him to stay at home. But that was just pride, she knew that.
“We have to go right now, today,” said Hudnee. “Menon and Metris set sail for Spitzbergen at dawn, and if we’re going to make it to the Barrens before midday tomorrow we have to leave now!”
Daneesa looked at Habna, who made a tiny nodding motion with her head.
Daneesa gave up the fight. Let him go with his friends and get away from Shellport for a while. It might even be nice to have a bit of peace and quiet around the village for a change. The women left on their own could get some real work done – and there would be plenty of social time too, she thought with a smile. Then she frowned.
“Since you won’t listen to reason,” she said, looking pointedly at Hudnee, “you might as well go and have your damn holiday!” The lesson was clear – and you’ll owe me big time when you get back.
Hudnee looked surprised, and Daneesa realized she’d given in too easily. Then he leaped up and hastened out of Habna’s front room, to return moments later.
“Well, niggle-naggle, are you coming or not?” he said. Battrick grinned at the insult, then hurried out of the room as well.
“What about the rest of the meeting?” said Daneesa in exasperation.
Habna smiled. “You knew they weren’t going to stick around once you gave in. Come on, girl, you’ve got to think through your decisions when you’re dealing with husbands.”
Daneesa snorted. Habna was right of course. It was something you learned as you got older. It was something that really stretched a woman’s mind, and it was also a great game of social binding – one that she had to admit she enjoyed. She looked forward to the time the two girls were off her hands, and she could spend more time with Hudnee, and more time helping to run the village.
“Everything ready?” said Hudnee as he and Battrick hurried toward the docks.
“Absolutely,” replied Battrick. “Three dooplehuel fully provisioned and crews ready at a moment’s notice. I had to cut the numbers down – it wouldn’t have left enough fishing boats to feed the village!”
Hudnee grinned. All those who had been in the militia would have wanted to come, he was sure of that. The presence of the Invardii base on the planet was a reminder of what they had been fighting for. Freedom from the restrictive Descendant rule, and now from the Invardii enslavement of other races.
The Dooplehuel left the loading docks at Shellport moments later, each one carrying the maximum complement of five villagers, four at the ends of the two hulls and one stretched out on the light pole and hide deck. They coasted on the river current until they were clear of the sea forest, then turned south.
Not content with the steady coastal breeze filling the sail, they added a paddler at the front and back of each hull for more speed, and rotated the fifth villager as the others tired.
They made good time.
CHAPTER 20
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The three dooplehuel were close to Spitzbergen by the time the sun set. The Valkrethi were already in the cave Menon had prepared for them, when Hudnee and the others sailed past. They had a long way to go yet. Relying on the stars above them, the villagers continued down the coast in the darkness, each dooplehuel steered by one of the crew as the others slept.
They didn’t see the cliffs of Spitzbergen end, or the swamps of the eastern wastelands begin. Around the middle of the night they started to angle in toward the shore, and when dawn came they were running in to the coast with the islands of the Barrens dead ahead. The villagers called them the Teeth.
“Perfect,” said Hudnee, as he stood, balancing carefully in the front of one of the narrow hulls, surveying their position. “Now we just have to find Blood river and make it to one of the islands. We’ll have an excellent view from there.”
“Not long to Blood river,” said one of the men behind him. “I can see the Pillar and the Scouse starting to line up. When they do, we follow the shore down until we hit the Blood.”
Hudnee nodded. He was looking forward to the coming battle. They all were. The vast underwater ring of the Invardii base, and the giants he had been told the Alliance was bringing. It should be quite a show.
The main force of Javelins came out of star drive well above the atmosphere but directly over the Barrens. Every Hud pilot on Prometheus had volunteered for this mission as soon as it was announced. They were keen to rid their home planet of the Invardii presence, whatever the cost.
Hud pilots now controlled more than half the 320 Javelins Prometheus could field. It was they, plus the Human pilots of the modified Javelins carrying the Valkrethi, that looked down on a ring of islands bordering a large, flat continent, far below them.
“Remember not to get excited, and rush the job,” said Ayman Case, now Commodore Case and mission leader while Cagill led the Valkrethi. He was speaking to the task force that had been assembled for the attack on the Barrens.
“Our job is to draw out the destruction of the mining base, and draw in as many of the Reaper ships as we can.”
He knew there would be an orchestrated nodding of heads in the Javelins arrayed around him. These were experienced pilots and technicians, most from the planet below and all hardened to the grueling demands of war. They would live and die depending on each other, and they would stick to the plan. Any ideas of personal glory had been stripped from them long ago.
&
nbsp; “Sensors on the Sea Anemone are plotting the Barrens topography now,” he continued, “expect data in a few minutes.”
The sensor array on the Sea Anemone – a modified Javelin containing surveillance equipment – had already extended to its full width. The strange, ungainly blob with its ‘feeding mouth’ fully open did look like a sea anemone filtering sea water for scraps of food.
The comms console on the bridge of Ayman’s Javelin lit up, and the comms officer transferred the data to the overhead display. Graphics showed the Barrens as a circle of islands, colored a matte brown, surrounding a shallow sea that was shown in a neutral gray.
Inside the shallow sea, surrounded by the jagged, upright islands of the Teeth, a huge round shape had been outlined in red. It had short, stubby arms roughly aligned with compass directions in blue. In the center of the mining base a smaller circle, raised up from the sea bed and finishing just below water level, acted as a cap on the whole affair.
“The mass launcher,” said Ayman, shining a pointer onto the cap. His words, and the view of his bridge, was being relayed to the other ships as he spoke.
“We want to hit that early on, in case they try to use it as a weapon against the Javelins. The fusion ring is probably the dark ring around the outside of the cap. The size of the ring matches that reported by the Shellport villagers who saw the mass launcher at work.”
The details of the attack unfolded. The Javelins would chip away at the mining base, irritating the Invardii rather than doing any real damage, and trying to avoid any harm to the Barrens. It might not be an important part of Hud, but if they could avoid damaging the environment of the planet they would.
When the attack had drawn as many enemy ships to the area as possible the Valkrethi would close the trap. At least, that was how it was supposed to work, but the business of warfare was never simple.
Ayman initiated the first wave of the attack, and the mining base came alive in response.
Dozens of missiles, simple impact explosives that might rupture the skin of the mining base and let the sea in, got just over half way to their target.
The missiles left the Javelins and entered the atmosphere, stubby wings guiding them toward their targets on internal systems. Almost immediately the fusion reactor in the middle of the Barrens geared up, exactly as Menon and Metris had seen it do during their earlier surveillance.
Looping bars of light doubled and redoubled their speed under the water, until they formed a continuous ring round the raised cap. As the missiles from the Javelins approached, a huge plasma dome sprang up over the mining site, taller than the islands around it. Ripples danced through the orange fire of the dome as it burst up out of the water, and then steadied.
One by one the first missiles vaporized against it, and then dozens of points of lights quickly followed, until all the missiles had been destroyed.
“Mass launcher powering up,” said Ayman Cases’s comms officer, relaying information from the Sea Anemone.
“Hell’s teeth!” grunted Ayman, realizing that what he had feared most was about to happen. He tapped in an override command on the comms band in front of him, and spoke to every ship in the fleet.
“Clear the area over the mining base, repeat, clear the area! Evasive action!,” and he sent out the coordinates for the ‘no go’ area that would keep the circle of sky above the Barrens clear of the task force.
As he finished speaking, the first of a string of dark pods erupted through the plasma shield and raced out through the atmosphere, and on into space. It passed between a Javelin and the Sea Anemone, but others followed. The ships scattered, but then one of the pods clipped a Javelin, tearing away part of one side. It spun under the impact, then stabilized. A very welcome message followed moments later.
“Decks four and five isolated, damage reports still coming in, but we seem to have power and steerage.”
The ship limped after the others, and finally cleared the area. As had been proved before, the Druanii shields were proof against any kind of missile or energy attack, but couldn’t deflect a large inertial mass.
When the last of the Javelins were clear, Ayman stopped for a moment and thought about the damaged ship. It did further the overall plan, though he wouldn’t have chosen it that way.
The Javelins had stirred up the mining base, and taken some damage in doing so. The weaker they looked to the Invardii, the more Reaper ships would be committed to what they hoped would be a massive retaliatory strike. Something to make up for the loss of their ships at the ice planet in the Alamos system.
All Ayman had to do now was keep making attempts to attack the base, until the Invardii reinforcements arrived. He didn’t realist his actions at the barrens had a number of land-bound spectators. The three dooplehuel from Shellport had entered the Blood river earlier in the day.
The tongue of rust-red water issuing from its mouth had been easy to spot. It was laden with tannins from the peat swamps inland. The dooplehuel had turned up into it, furling the sails and working their way along by paddling up the calmer water closer to the banks. Then it had been time to cut across to the Teeth.
The portage of the dooplehuel had been a grimy business. The short distance between the Blood and the clear water at the back of the Teeth was measured not in distance, but in the number of times the hulls got stuck in a tangle of gray saltbush, or the number of times one of the crew slipped in the greasy mud and went down onto their hands and knees in the swamp.
The short journey wasn’t helped by the sudden appearance of swamp flies. They were beautiful to look at – bright blues and striped reds having something to do with the toxic material of the swamp – but they pumped anesthetic into their bites and sucked on the villager’s skin until blood ran down their legs. In the end they coated themselves liberally with the slimy mud of the swamp, and it did seem to help.
The arrival of the dooplehuel at the edge of the Barrens was greeted with relief. The crews splashed into the salt water and scrubbed themselves down. Hudnee would have liked Menon’s knowledge of medicine plants to help the others, but in the end one of the crew found a plant that reduced swelling, and they all chewed on the bark stripped off it until the worst of the itching and swelling had abated.
Hudnee looked across at the top of the nearest island. That was where they needed to be if they wanted to see the attack on the mining base. He rounded up the others and they paddled the dooplehuel quickly across the last stretch of water, beaching them at the back of the island.
The villagers didn’t bother to hide the water craft. The mining base would be too busy with the Alliance attack to worry about the insignificant threat they posed. Then they climbed the slope above them.
Their position at the top was perfect, hidden from the direction of the mining base by a narrow ridge, and sheltered from the light wind. They took turns peering down into the wide, flat waters of the inner Barrens, and soon discovered there was nothing to see – not yet anyway. In the end Hudnee set two sentries, and ordered the rest of them to make themselves some lunch.
He was considering the possibilities of making a small, smokeless fire from the desiccated grasses of the Barrens, when there was a sharp crack from the sea behind him, and the sentries slid down into the hollow. They motioned frantically in the direction they had just left. Hudnee scrambled to the top of the slope, and stared in wonder at the huge orange dome that now covered the inland sea.
One of the sentries pointed upward, and they all watched in wonder as tiny objects fell toward the dome from far above. Despite their keen vision, none of them could understand what they were. The first one produced a puff of brilliant white against the orange dome, and then others did the same.
CHAPTER 21
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Hudnee wondered what that meant. The display looked pretty to him. The sacred color white kept appearing on the immense orange surface of the dome, and then dissipating. Though he couldn’t understand how the whole area of the dome could be exact
ly the same orange color.
The puffs of white died away, and then the top of the dome dimmed as long, dark shapes sped into the air – a group of three, a pause, and then another group of three. Hudnee wondered how anything could move so fast. He looked up once again. The ships of the Human strangers were up there, somewhere. He couldn’t see a trace of them.
He shivered. The villagers were dealing with things frighteningly far beyond their understanding.
The young people though, the trainees they had sent to help in the war against the Invardii, they would be getting used to things like this. They were already used to traveling between planets.
It made Hudnee proud. Proud and worried at the same time. Would the old ways of Hud disappear under an avalanche of new things? Would the people of Hud become just mindless copies of the pale ones?
Probably not, he decided. Habna would be dead against anything like that, and Habna was a force to be reckoned with.
Somewhat reassured, Hudnee turned back to the dome, just in time to see it hit by something going too fast for him to see. Hundreds of red stains spread over the dome, as if by of magic. At the same time waterspouts erupted from the sea all around the dome. The noise was deafening, like nothing he had ever heard before.
There was a sound like the tearing of nets as the red stains disappeared off the dome. The deep thump of the waterspouts was followed by a sound like the rattling of shells as the water fell back onto the surface of the sea.
Whatever that was, it must have come from the pale ones’ ships, somewhere above the layer of air that Menona said cloaked the planet. That was where the Hud trainees were. Except they had all finished their training and were pilots now, so Menona said.
How did they breath up there, he wondered? How cold was it in the ships at night, so far from the planet, or how hot would it be if they got close to the sun? It didn’t bear thinking about.
Invardii Box Set 2 Page 31
