Invardii Box Set 2
Page 38
As soon as they were clear of the disintegrating vessel, Cagill pulled up another Reaper ship on his optic screen, and fed the coordinates to his team. They began to slide in a new direction, just as a gigantic explosion reduced the enemy ship below them to an expanding circle of debris and super-heated gases.
On the way to their new target, Cagill opened a channel to his command Javelin, and got an overview of the situation. A little over a quarter of the Reaper ships had so far been destroyed.
A good start, he thought. It showed the teams were getting the hang of the new tactics. Once they’d wrapped up this part of the operation, the sabotage squadrons would be able to get on with their work destroying the shipyard itself.
He called in his partner’s operational status. The Valkrethi energy levels were almost completely restored, which was a good result after the hammering the giant mount had received from the Invardii weapons. The other two Valkrethi were showing good to go as well.
“Focus,” said Cagill over his team’s open channel. “We need to be fresh for every one of these damn things. If boarding a Reaper ship becomes routine, we’re in trouble.”
Three hearty, “yes, Sir!” replies snapped back. As one united force they worked their way through the shields, and descended onto the nearest hub. From there they repeated their earlier performance.
The rest of the operation went smoothly, and one by one the enemy ships were knocked out of the fight. Then it was all over.
“It’s starting to cost us,” said Cagill later, over the sub-space connection to Cordez.
“Sure, it took time for us to work out how to meet the changes in the Reaper ships, so we should be better prepared when we meet them again, but that’s another three Valkrethi lost. On top of that there was one pilot we couldn’t resuscitate,” he added grimly.
“That’s five Valkrethi of the original 24 gone now, and we can’t afford a war of attrition.”
“I know, Neuman, I know,” said Cordez sympathetically. “There’s what, 120 Valkrethi left on Orouth? That’s a great asset for us, but it’s not an inexhaustible supply.
“It shows us we don’t have forever to wind up this showdown with the Invardii,” he continued, “and now we’ve got the location of the Invardii city, we’ve got to decide when we take the battle to their front door.”
Cagill tried not to show his surprise. When had the Alliance learned that? Cordez seemed to realize he wasn’t talking to himself, and focused on Cagill again.
“Leave the loss of the Valkrethi to me, Neuman,” he said, “and pass on my congratulations to the rest of the pilots. We’ve knocked out most of the shipyards now, so the Invardii must be hurting.
“I doubt they can muster enough Reaper ships to be much of a threat to the Javelins when we do decide to attack their city, and we have you to thank for that.”
Cagill accepted the commendation on behalf of himself and the Valkrethi pilots.
“Accelerate the Javelin program for the Hud trainees,” said Cordez, as an afterthought. “There’s a large contingent of them mustering at Shellport, and they will be arriving at Prometheus soon.”
Cagill acknowledged the order.
“Until next time,” said Cordez with a nod, and ended the transmission.
Cagill was left transfixed by what Cordez had let slip. He knew Cordez had an inhuman amount of work to cope with now he was coordinating all the Alliance forces, and the ever-expanding research at Prometheus, but it looked like the left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing any more.
He decided it didn’t matter, as long as Cordez could hold it all together for the final assault on the Invardii city he had found. He knew Prometheus had been looking for it, and he knew it was the nerve center of the Invardii cell in the Alliance part of space.
Now they had to destroy it, and he and his Valkrethi were going to be tested to the limits of the giant machines.
THE END
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ANTARES CRUCIBLE
Sixth Book in the INVARDII series.
Warwick Gibson.
© 2019 Warwick Gibson.
All Rights Reserved.
DISCLAIMER.
This novel is a work of fiction. It does not draw from actual events. The characters are entirely fictitious, and do not bear any resemblance to persons living or dead.
ALSO by WARWICK GIBSON
THE UNSOUND PRINCE (Sword and sorcery fantasy)
ROUGH JUSTICE (Small town Chief of Police)
ENEMY WITHIN (SAS action with some sci-fi content)
The INVARDII Series
CHAOS and RETREAT
ANCESTRAL HOME
MEDIEVAL PLANET
BOXED SET: BOOKS 1 -3
FEDIC VITS
RISE OF THE VALKRETHI
ANTARES CRUCIBLE
BOXED SET: BOOKS 4 - 6
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
PART ONE: CONTROL OF THE SKIES
CHAPTER 1 CHAPTER 2 CHAPTER 3
HISTORIAN’S REPORT
PART TWO: WAR ON THE GROUND
CHAPTER 4 CHAPTER 5 CHAPTER 6
PART THREE: REBUILDING A PLANET
CHAPTER 7 CHAPTER 8 CHAPTER 9
PART FOUR: FINDING ANTARES
CHAPTER 10 CHAPTER 11 CHAPTER 12
HISTORIAN’S REPORT
PART FOUR: THE INVARDII ALLY
CHAPTER 13 CHAPTER 14 CHAPTER 15
PART FIVE: ORION AND DRUANII
CHAPTER 16 CHAPTER 17 CHAPTER 18
HISTORIAN’S REPORT
PART SIX: MORE VALKRETHI
CHAPTER 19 CHAPTER 20 CHAPTER 21
PART SEVEN: THE DRUANII BASE
CHAPTER 22 CHAPTER 23 CHAPTER 24
PART SEVEN: COUNTING DOWN
CHAPTER 25 CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27 CHAPTER 28
HISTORIAN’S REPORT
PART EIGHT: THE BATTLE FOR ANTARES
CHAPTER 29 CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31 CHAPTER 32
HISTORIAN’S REPORT
CHAPTER 33 CHAPTER 34
PROLOGUE
________________
My name is Herodotus. I am an historian.
I have been recording the terrible events of the Invardii wars as they played out over the last four years. I have made these records in case our civilization does not survive, and future races might find them among the rubble. They were a duty placed upon me by our leaders in this troubled time, Regents Cordez and Ming, of the South Am and Asian trading blocks.
Like many others, I did not expect the Human race to last as long as this. That we have survived, and even beaten back the invaders in places, was not in my wildest dreams.
Before I record the last chapter of this great conflict, I have one more historical account to tell. It is the story of the invasion of Earth. How our civilization was destroyed by a thousand-strong enemy armada, and then reborn. This is the greatest story of Human courage and determination ever told!
I have a matter of weeks left to record this extraordinary narrative. Then a life pod especially designed for my crippled state will be loaded onto one of the Javelins. I will be there when the greatest fleet of star ships ever assembled embarks on our civilization’s most perilous task. We are to track the Invardii to their city lair, and do our best to destroy them.
The rest of the Alliance will be with us. Sumerian warships and giant motherships will be present, and strange craft from sun systems the reclusive Druanii have kept as protectorates. The people of Hud pilot many of our Javelins now, and the Mersa and K’Sarth work tirelessly behind the scenes to support the war effort.
In the first volume of these historical works, I said it was my fondest wish that I would live long enough to tell you this last tale as the Alliance finally
begins to fight back. That wish has been granted.
Whether I will survive the final conflict, with a more powerful and more numerous foe than the Human race has ever encountered, remains to be seen. It is, perhaps, a lot to expect two miracles in one lifetime.
PART ONE: CONTROL OF THE SKIES
CHAPTER 1
________________
There were things worse than looking straight at something immensely powerful that was trying to kill you. Worse than something closing on you fast, very fast, ready to strike you down.
There were other things. Knowing something immensely powerful was coming and not yet seeing it, your insides stewing with fear and your outsides coated with sweat. That was worse.
Earth had been preparing for the invasion for months. Cordez could only hope the planet-wide frenzy had been enough. Of course it wasn’t. It couldn’t be. But somehow he had to make these last-minute preparations work. Somehow, he had to defend his planet.
The inhabitants of the Prometheus research and development base got a first-hand look at the vast Invardii armada as it passed by Neptune, still well out in the Solar System. The Javelin destroyers had left Prometheus to protect Earth some time before, and the huge production facility had been reconfigured to look like a simple mining camp. It now had a primitive energy signature to match.
As the Prometheus staff watched the screens overhead, long-range scanners closed in on the distant scattering of orange stars as it passed them by on the way to Earth.
Reaper ships in groups of five and six filled the main screen, interspersed with an occasional single ship traveling to and fro between them, and all spread out over immense distances in space. There was no doubting what Prometheus was looking at. The images were identical to ones of the Invardii fleet on its way to Uruk, before the invaders destroyed the Sumerian civilization on their home planet.
A similar armada had now entered the Solar System, and it was heading for Earth. A dozen or more of the giant Invardii flagships were traveling in the middle of the vast assemblage of ships. As the armada passed by Neptune, it became clear it was taking no notice of Prometheus.
Those remaining at the base, Human and Mersa alike, breathed a collective sigh of relief. Cargo ships hidden in the underground hangers for an emergency exit might not be needed.
Cordez watched the relayed feed from his wartime office. It was an operations room equipped with sub-space communications in the South Am military headquarters, a headquarters buried deep within the foothills of the Andes. Then Cordez switched to a feed from one of the Mars long-range scanners.
Ahead of the armada, a thin line of Javelins spread out along the orbit of Mars. The red planet was visible as a ruddy ball to their left as it continued on its way around the Sun. Cordez did the sums. He had 30 squadrons of Prometheus Javelins at his disposal, and joint command of EarthGov’s eight remaining squadrons, rebuilt to Javelin specifications. He had 380 ships lined up against 980, which gave the Invardii a numerical advantage around 2.5 to one.
But numbers were only one part of the equation. Most of his pilots were from Earth, and they would fight to the death for their homeland. The remaining ten squadrons were piloted by the people of Hud, with their extraordinary reflexes.
The armada closed on the line of silently waiting ships, exploratory arcs of coronal fire erupting from the first of the Reaper ships. The Javelins moved forward to meet them, forming up into combat groups. Adrenaline surged as the pilots prepared to pit reaction times and experience against an enemy they had met before. The Reaper ships closed into the tetrahedral groups of four that allowed them to overlap their arcs of fire to best effect.
The Hud pilots were the first to engage. Kanuk and Leana led squadrons out into the open spaces above the endless sea of enemy ships, and turned their Javelins on their backs as they dived through it. They chose their paths carefully, and raked individual Reaper ships with salvos of self-guiding slugs. Both of them already had a number of kills against the Reaper ships from this low-tech but deadly form of attack.
The super-dense projectiles slammed home against the enemy hulls, and the plasma shields on the Invardii ships flared a deep red as the slugs were absorbed, and destroyed. Cordez sat up in alarm. That had never happened before.
Kanuk came round again, his speed increasing as lightning-fast reflexes began to kick in. He easily evaded the intense coronal arcs seeking to knock him out of the fight. He raked one of the Reaper ships from nose to ornate bladed tail again, two of his squadron’s Javelins following him and raking the underside of the Reaper ship’s hull.
The plasma shields of the ship flared under the combined attack, turning the super-dense slugs to a series of red stains against the hull. The shields faded to a dull yellow, exhausted under the combined attack, but as another Javelin raced in, seeking to take advantage of the weakness, its shields flared again. Then the shields destroyed the new salvo of slugs as easily as the last.
Cordez was dismayed as he realized what was happening. The Invardii had adapted to the earlier Javelin successes against them. Their plasma shields were now able to destroy the fractal slugs before they penetrated the hull and did any damage. It was a disaster. It took out the only real weapon the Earth forces had against the armada.
Cordez tried desperately to find a solution. He had expected the Invardii to improvise like this at some stage. The war had become a test of which side could change what they were doing the fastest. The timing of the new development in the plasma shields was terrible. It had come when the Solar System lay open to the invaders, and the Alliance had no time to prepare a new defense.
The Regent struggled to get his emotions under control. There was still a battle to be fought, and the Alliance forces would be looking to him for direction. The Javelin pilots would have seen what just happened, as would everyone throughout the planets of the Alliance as they watched the live feeds from long-range scanners. He needed to act decisively, and he needed to act now!
“Air Marshall Cagill,” he snapped, impatient to get the feeling of hopelessness out of his system, “return one of the Mark Ten squadrons of Javelins to Prometheus. Break off the attack and reform at secondary positions around Earth. Leave the Hud squadrons though, tell them to stand off for the moment.”
“Understood. Cagill out,” came a crisp reply over the comms link. The Air Marshall was out there with the forces he was commanding, and Cordez admired him for that. It was only his ‘irreplaceable’ position as effectively leader of the Alliance that kept Cordez out of the fighting.
He motioned one of his aides over. “Repeat the order to reform around Earth to EarthGov Chief of Staff McGorant for the Earth warships,” he said, “and apologize for my absence. Give my code authorization.”
EarthGov had appointed McGorant to the position because of his close association with both the political system and the Board of Regents, and Cordez had thought the appointment a fair one. The aide snapped a salute and hurried off.
Cordez opened an instantaneous sub-space link to Prometheus, and told Finch that the timeline for the new, and untested, missiles the base was working on had just been sped up. They were wanted in less than 24 hours.
The Prometheus head met some stiff resistance to the unexpected request when he passed the message on. Engineering head Carlos Paula told him it was impossible, that the guidance systems were untested and might backfire on the Javelins.
Finch told him the pilots on the front line were prepared to take the chance, and so should he. Carlos was at a loss what to say after that. Eventually he said he would do his best to meet the deadline.
Cordez called another aide over.
“Where in all the goddamn hells I can think of, and that’s a lot, are the Sumerian warships?” he demanded.
“Less than an hour away,” replied the aide. “Shall I contact them for a more exact ETA?”
Cordez shook his head. Then he waved the aide away, and got back to Cagill, who was heading the Javelin squadrons.
>
“The Reaper ship defenses looked overloaded under multiple salvos,” he said. “If the Hud teams can land enough salvos at exactly the same time, some of them might get through. What do you think?”
Cagill had been thinking the same thing. Seconds later the Hud squadrons had new orders, and returned to the attack. The armada was already well past the line of Mars’ orbit.
The first Reaper ship the Javelins targeted en mass turned a pale yellow as a dozen salvos landed at the same time. The following attack, arriving seconds later, sped through the weakly shielded hull and dispersed inside the enemy ship. That should have been enough to destroy the internal hubs, but nothing happened.
The cheers that were just beginning on board the attacking squadrons tailed off as the plasma shields came up to a new brightness, and the Reaper ship continued on its way.
“We believe they’ve also shielded the hubs against the super-dense slugs,” reported Finch a little later, as he made contact from Prometheus. Cordez swore abruptly, and struggled once again to bring his emotions under control. He still thought the idea might work though, and Cagill agreed.
“Whole squadron precision,” suggested Cagill. “Three salvos each, first set arriving simultaneously, a two second gap, then the last two bursts arriving as close as possible behind each other.”
Cagill acknowledged.
The Hud squadrons were now attacking in rolling waves, each wave coming up to the extraordinary peak reflex and thinking speed of its pilots in turn, while the other two waves rested. It was an unequal battle as three Hud squadrons at a time chewed away at the head of an armada nearly a thousand ships strong.
The first Alliance success followed a short time later, and a Reaper ship ignited in a soundless flash of light. The fog of molten droplets cooled rapidly in space, and all trace of the enemy ship was gone.