CHAPTER 30
________________
The endless sea of warships, attacking and defending alike, moved steadily toward the outermost layers of the Antares sun. Reaper ships poured out of the ruddy murk of the outer layers, where they had been on patrol around the city itself.
The Alliance ships labored under the intense heat of the red, super giant sun. The Reaper ships, though, were in their element. A sudden flare from the sun reduced the effectiveness of Kanuk’s sensors and weapons systems. Yet still the Alliance pressed home their advantage, and drew closer to the Invardii city, still hidden in the outer layers of the Antares sun.
Kanuk’s group of Javelins forced their way slowly through a line of Reaper ships, and were engaged by a group of Buccra ships determined to stop them. The fight dragged on, no quarter given or expected.
One of the squat cube ships sailed into the middle of the battleground, drawing Buccra fire off Kanuk’s group of Javelins. Then it laid trails of mines which veered toward the enemy vessels. One of the long ships appeared overhead, and took out a Buccra warship on Kanuk’s right.
The gray bubbles had had a marked effect on the engagement when they first arrived, but now they retreated from the front line. They didn’t have, it seemed, any defense against the heat, and solar flares, of the Antares sun.
A line of Invardii flagships emerged from the surface of the red giant sun, and Kanuk’s jaw tightened. The Alliance had hoped that all but a few of the giant flagships had been destroyed, but it appeared this was not so. These must have been provided by other Invardii cells, somewhere in the core. The flagships would make it that much harder to finish what they had come here to do.
More than a dozen flagships approached the Javelin position. Snakes of orange fire coiled out from them, and tried to latch onto the Javelins in Kanuk’s group. It took every bit of their speed and agility to stay clear of the ropes of fire.
A river of compressed plasma surged past on Kanuk’s left, striking a number of Javelins and knocking them out of action. More of the plasma bolts struck along the front line, savaging Alliance ships, and Kanuk suddenly realized what was happening. The Invardii city had joined the fray. It was able to use the plasma all around it to build the bolts it was firing at the Alliance forces.
This close to the sun, and the city, the balance of power quickly swung back in favor of the Invardii. As Kanuk planned the best way to get his people out of the engagement, Cagill’s voice came over the comms system.
“Cagill speaking,” he began, the strong voice of the Air Marshall unmistakable. “Disengage. Repeat, disengage and fall back. Set a rearguard and watch for counter-attacks, but hurry!”
He paused. “Fall back to previously prepared positions, and stay out of range of the city’s plasma cannons.
“And well done,” he added, “to all of you.”
Then the transmission ended.
When a new front line had been established, further out in the Antares system, Cordez called a tactical meeting on Cagill’s command Javelin. The commanders of each of the military formations were there, and Cordez, with Finch, was present via a sub space link.
“The long ships were the Druanii contingent,” said Cagill, and the commanders immediately knew which ships he meant.
“There were close to a hundred of them initially,” he continued, “and probably one Druanii to each ship.”
Cordez nodded. It was hard to imagine more than one of the long, solitary, dragon-like shapes to each ship, regardless of how big the ship was.
“They made a real dent in the Buccra numbers,” continued Cagill, “though they didn’t seem to bother with the Reaper ships. That may be something to do with the endless treaties between the three primary races.
“Unfortunately, the Buccra also seemed to know exactly how to deal with the Druanii ships. Even though they were only visible for seconds at a time, the Buccra managed to destroy around half of their ships by the end of the day.”
“Old enemies I would think,” said Cordez.
There was a moment’s silence. The Druanii had paid a heavy price to help the Alliance in this battle.
“What were those rings they came out of?” said Cagill.
“I’m told they were spatial displacement vectors,” said Finch. “What you or I would call wormholes. The research teams here at Prometheus are going nuts over them. They are theoretically possible, but would require an almost infinite amount of energy.
“The Druanii must have found a way to lower the potentiality of space, thin it out somehow. That’s the only way they could hide outside of normal space for extended periods of time the way they did.”
“Great trick if you know how to do it,” said Cagill in disbelief.
“What about the other ships?” said Kanuk, who was standing beside Cagill on his bridge. “Where did they come from?”
“They all come from Druanii protectorates,” said Cagill, who had been able to call upon Subdirector’s knowledge in these matters. The Orion wasn’t present. It had taken itself off for some sort of regeneration process while the meeting took place.
“The boxy, squat ships are from a small cluster of suns in what we call the Centaur constellation. Surprisingly they don’t have stardrive, and I’m guessing the Druanii brought them here and cloaked them. Right up to the time when they helped Kanuk’s tetrarch fight its way through to the center of the Buccra forces.”
That stopped the conversation again. The commanders all vividly remembered the turning point in the battle. It had looked like it was going to be a bloody confrontation right down to the last ship, taking forever. Then they were delivered into a winning position by the sudden appearance of the Druanii ships and their allies.
“Most of the Centaur ships made it through the day,” said AldSanni. “The Sumerian forces report tracking them back to the outer parts of the Antares system when the flagships emerged from the sun. They were gone before the city began to use its plasma weapons.”
“Wise move,” said Cordez with a smile. “We weren’t that far behind them.”
“I don’t think we can count on the Centaur ships for more than what they have already done,” said Cagill. “They’ve got little left of their heat shields, or much in the way of mines to lay down I think.
“We’ve tracked them making their way out of the Antares system – very slowly I might add, without stardrive – and I imagine the Druanii will take them home when this is all over.”
There was a moment’s thoughtful silence.
“And the gray bubbles?” said Kanuk.
“That’s not so clear,” said Cagill. “Even with Subdirector explaining things it took a long time to find out where they came from.
“They’re from so far out on the edge of the galaxy we couldn’t place them in any of the constellations we know. Their language is pretty much beyond us. It’s all sensory statements, dozens of words for finely differing grades of basic emotions, but they call themselves after a color, the one we call magenta.
“Each of those bubbles contained the life force of one of them, as best as I can make out. From the number of bubbles the Reaper ships in particular destroyed today, they died in their thousands.”
There was no comment that could follow that, and the bridge was silent for a long time.
Eventually Cordez said quietly, “and they destroyed a great number of Invardii and Buccra vessels. We must always remember them for that.”
“The bubbles are more fragile then the Centaur ships,” continued Cagill, “or any of the Alliance ships for that matter.
“They can’t operate close to the Antares sun, so I don’t know if they can help us when it comes to the final push on the Invardii city. I’m also not sure they would want to, following the losses they have already sustained.”
Mention of the Invardii city dampened the thoughts of all of them. The Alliance had cut the number of enemy ships in half, but with the appearance of the flagships, and the city’s plasma weapons, any at
tack on the city itself would be close to suicide.
“Let’s cross our bridges one at a time,” said Cordez diplomatically, and brought the meeting to a close.
The others knew he always had back-up plans, but they were plans that weren’t finalized, ones he kept to himself. For now they would just have to believe in his leadership, and believe in themselves to hammer home the final links of the battle plan.
Cagill found himself strangely wistful. Day three, he murmured. Tomorrow would be day three. Heaven help them all if Fedic couldn’t provide them with a miracle tomorrow.
Whether Fedic did, or didn’t, he thought somberly, it was going to be a very long day.
The man he was thinking about was in the middle of a catnap. Of all Human nervous systems, his was perhaps the most flexible, but he was being stretched to his limits and beyond.
He came out of a troubled sleep as the ship’s alarm told him, yet again, that the speed of the inside-out torus that was his ship had fallen below the minimum he needed.
Fifteen minutes was never enough time to develop REM sleep. A backlog of images, dreamed up by his agitated brain, kept trying to stamp themselves on the back of his eyeballs.
If he stopped concentrating for even a moment, he was back in one of the unholy conflicts he had endured in his long career. Or even worse, devilish characters would prance and gibber at the edges of his vision, poking at the delicate instrumentation of the bridge and driving him to distraction.
Still, according to his calculations, he should be almost there.
Trying to ‘see’ through the murk of the red super giant with his sensors was a hit and miss affair, but several times now he had caught a solid echo from something ahead of him.
He tried the sensors again, and this time a massive shape was outlined briefly on the screen, until the image was lost to interference. Almost there then, he muttered. He sighed, and followed that with a deep breath to brace himself. It was time for the final showdown.
The ruddy murk of the Antares star cleared, and the sheer wall at the back of the Invardii city loomed over him. It stretched impossibly far in every direction. A little to his right vast, square bays projected from the smooth wall, and he knew he had found the heat exchangers.
An alarm sounded briskly, and one of his screens shifted to show a Reaper ship approaching along the wall below him. Fedic eased back into the murk, confident it would keep him out range of the Reaper ship’s sensors. His job was going to be difficult enough without Invardii patrols. How was he going to deal with them?
On the other side of the city the Alliance was in the process of pushing the enemy warships back to the surface of the star, and the city’s last line of defense. The flagships, and the Reaper ships on patrol around the city, were about to pour out of the star and into battle.
The Reaper ship patrolling near Fedic, and another a long way to his right, were suddenly recalled to help. They turned away to join other ships, all of them moving out of the star to attack the Alliance.
CHAPTER 31
________________
Fedic eased his strange torus ship toward the vast sound shell directly ahead of him. It protected the back of the Invardii city from the fires of the Antares sun, but its shielding effect wasn’t enough on its own. The city had heat exchangers on a scale that he doubted anyone could imagine, and he was lining up on them so he could destroy them.
He hesitated for a moment, but when it was clear the Reaper ships weren’t coming back, he armed a spread of thermonuclear missiles. Moments later he sent them on their way toward the vast, square structures attached to the back of the sound shell.
Brief white points flared in the ruddy murk of the Antares sun, and a number of holes appeared in the outer layers of the exchangers. That surprised him. He had expected more damage, and decided the metals must be sophisticated alloys, reinforced with an energy shielding.
Now he had a problem. He wasn’t getting through to the vast bays of machinery that lay deeper inside the exchangers. Fedic guided the torus closer, and couldn’t see any obviously weak points to attack. This was getting him nowhere. He needed to find a vital point and disable it.
Then he saw something that might do the job. It was a raised dome over a shaft that looked like it ran down into the heart of the large, square structures. He fired another set of missiles, all aimed at the same point, and a good-sized crater appeared where the top of the shaft used to be. Now he could see that the remains of the shaft where it led much deeper into the city.
That was where he needed to target his remaining missiles, but the turbulent currents within the star were pushing the torus around, and moving some of the deadly devices off course. He needed to be more accurate, and he needed to unload the missiles as one continuous train if he was to cripple the city. No, he would have to be much closer, and that meant he would be too close to his own missiles when they detonated.
Fedic desperately tried to think of another way to drop his remaining missiles down the shaft. Then he saw Reaper ships converging on his position from several directions. It hadn’t taken them long to figure out what he was up to, and they were just as desperate to stop him as he was to succeed.
Fedic shrugged. He had always known he wasn’t coming back from this one. Then he moved his ship directly over the shaft.
Setting the remaining missiles to detonate on impact, he ran the torus down the opening below him. The ship fitted inside the shaft, just, and long seconds passed as it accelerated downward.
Fedic had time to pat the instrument panel in front of him, and said, “well done, girl,” before the ship slammed into a junction where the long corridor split in several directions. The heat exchanger tore apart from the inside out.
Fedic had accomplished his mission, and it was only a matter of time before the Alliance ships on the other side of the Invardii city knew that too. The temperature inside the Invardii would soon start to rise rapidly.
The first to notice was a long-range sensor officer on Cagill’s command Javelin. He got the information to Cagill as fast as he could.
“Fedic’s done it!” said Cagill, and the bridge on the command Javelin went deathly quiet.
Cagill didn’t bother to repeat himself.
“Look at this,” he said,bringing up a 3D representation in front of him and flicking an array of energy readings onto it.
Earlier scans of the Invardii city had showed a substantial mass in the outer layers of the Antares sun at a temperature well below its surroundings. The particle radiation pouring out of the star distorted the readings a little, but the results were clear enough.
But now, as every eye on the bridge watched a sped up process on the thermal imager, the wavering blob that showed the Invardii city started to disappear before their eyes.
“The city’s taking on the temperature of its surroundings,” said Cagill quietly, and some of the others nodded. They could all see it. It was a miracle, but Fedic must have got through, somehow.
“The change has been noticeable for nearly an hour,” said Cagill. “Imperceptible at first, but accelerating now. I think they’ve got a problem on their hands.”
Cagill’s heart leaped at the thought. Godsdammit, the Alliance might just have a chance!
His comms officer opened sub space links with Cordez and Prometheus. Cordez’ bleary appearance, and the darkness outside his home office, told Cagill it was night time in the South Am block. The Regent might have been asleep, but he was waking up fast. Finch appeared to be in the middle of his normal working day at Prometheus.
Cagill explained the situation.
“The Invardii city may have stardrive capabilities,” said Finch promptly. “We’re working through the information the research team downloaded from the archive on Ba’H’Roth, and that’s one thing we’ve learned. I would hate for it to get away from us now.”
“Yes, that could be a problem,” said Cagill. “Subdirector has been passing on more details about the treaties we should be a
ble to use to force the Invardii back to the core of the galaxy. As far as the treaties are concerned the city is equivalent to the cell. If the city escapes, we haven’t defeated the cell.”
“It’s worse than that,” said Finch. “According to the material Fedic brought back from Mentuk, even a flagship is considered a seed ship, and could start the cycle all over again.”
“So what you’re saying,” said Cordez slowly, “is that we have to win this war convincingly. If we don’t destroy the city, or we leave just one flagship still functional, it’s only a draw as far as the Invardii are concerned?”
There was silence on the bridge of the command Javelin. It was clear the war wasn’t going to be over soon, and it wasn’t going to be over easily. The Alliance would have to hunt down and destroy everything bigger than a Reaper ship, and they would have to go through the rest of the Invardii and Buccra forces to do it.
“Stand off from the sun,” said Cordez, “and wait for the Invardii to make the first move. It is possible the city was badly damaged in the attack on the heat exchanger, and if the power sources were involved it might blow up with the force of a small sun. When I get back to you, set up a loop with me here at South Am and Finch at Prometheus. Keep it open permanently from now on.”
He knew that Cagill would do as he asked, and closed the connection at that point. Asura had left him alone while he took the call, and now she brought in a tray from the adjoining room, with a steaming cup of a his favorite brew.
Cordez had asked Asura to leave the Summer Palace and stay with him until the attack on the Antares sun was over, one way or another. He had expected that the losses on both sides would be heavy, but now it seemed it could only be a victory if one side damn near exterminated the other.
His hand started to shake, and Asura took the cup from him and put it back on the tray. Then she wrapped herself around him.
“So many are going to die,” he said, his voice a cracked whisper. “All the races of the Alliance, even the Invardii, much as they’re an enemy. So many have already gone. Fedic has been taken.”
Invardii Box Set 2 Page 57
