Rise of the Valkrethi

by Warwick Gibson

  CHAPTER 7

  ________________

  The Druanii dragon-like shape hung in the air before them. It looked impressive from every angle. Alert, capable, even a little scary.

  “Is that a Human figure under it for comparison?” said Roberto, pointing to a tiny figure under the Druanii form. Andre nodded.

  “Hell’s teeth, the damn thing is huge!” finished Roberto. Celia nodded her agreement.

  “Why is it so heavily armoured?” asked Jeneen, impressed at the short spikes along its back, and the closely packed plates that covered it elsewhere, ending in sharp little points of their own.

  “Cultural message I would say,” responded Sallyanne promptly. “It’s surprising how the deepest unconscious attitudes of the mind are part of everyday life for an intelligent species. They are there for those who look, but not consciously examined by the species itself.”

  She seemed to be calculating something in her mind.

  “I think the Druanii take a fundamentally defensive posture,” she said, “and the Invardii take an attacking one. This body armour – whether it’s for show or the real thing – is an extension of the Druanii defensive attitude. The excellence of the Druanii shields on the Javelins is another example.

  “It may also explain why the Druanii feel an affinity with us. We could be the suppressed assertive side they have difficulty dealing with.”

  The others looked at her in bewilderment.

  “Do you think like this all the time?” said Andre, finding the reasoning extremely convoluted. “Can’t two races just be friends?”

  Sallyanne smiled. “Of course they can, Andre. It’s just that for most things in our lives there is also a little unconscious prodding going on, and it’s a wise person who takes that into consideration.”

  “Well, that explains why I’m not one of those wise people then,” said Andre, with a rueful grin. The others laughed.

  Celia got them back to work. The database lay open before them, and any information the alliance could use against the Invardii was a piece of gold.

  More excited than any of them could remember ever being, they worked on through the days ahead. Not that far from Ba’H’Roth, in a straight line, if the wondrous ability of star ships was taken for granted, another miracle was taking place.

  A giant nuclear accelerator lay buried in an ice field on the second to outermost of the planets in the Alamos system. Earth’s allies, the diminutive Mersa, had built it for the war effort from plans Cordez had given them. With this accelerator, and its production of Orscantium for their star ships, the fight against the Invardii could be indefinitely sustained.

  Ereth Lawson ran the show. At this precise moment he was tapping the thin, metal scan-meter he held with his other hand. Of course it made no difference to the electronic reading. It was an old habit, going back to when he was very young indeed. His father had insisted he build all his equipment from parts, and the possibility of a loose connection was firmly imbedded in the deepest layers of his mind.

  He recalled his early years of discovery and experimentation, and realised that was a long time ago. The hand that held the scan-meter was wrinkled with age now, and his hair had been ‘re-seeded’ as they called it these days. He had omitted the stimulants that would have generated a natural hair colour again. His short, even covering of coarse hair was pure white.

  Yes, he’d come a long way since then. These days he was one of the most experienced technicians the South Am block had, and it had been his skill that made the accelerator possible.

  It was carved out of a vast ice field on one of the outermost planets of the Alamos system, and he could feel the deep rumble under his feet as the accelerator worked tirelessly, assembling Orscantium atoms in their strange sixteen-pointed configuration from the superheavy elements mined far beneath the smothering ice.

  The ice field, full of crevasses, had been an ideal buffer against the threat of earthquakes, or even asteroids striking through the thin atmosphere. The whole complex was built on a solid platform that ‘floated’ deep in the ice, and the many crevasses around and under it would fold up and absorb the energy of any such disasters. It had been a brilliant piece of off world engineering.

  The plain of ice outside the diamond polymer window sparkled prettily today – weak though the effect was – as it caught the light of the far distant sun. Most of the time the surface was hidden behind the howling ice storms that buffeted the planet, or it was lost in a haze of constantly changing colour as methane, various halides, and water vapour took turns to out-gas straight off the ice. Some time later they would coalesce back as a rain of wafer-like crystals.

  Ereth said something to his Mersa second-in-command, and they discussed the abnormally low temperature reading from the base of the platform. The fine weather was allowing a lot of heat to escape into space, if minus 120 degrees could be called heat, and it was responsible for the low temperatures.

  The two of them decided the problem would rectify itself shortly, when bad weather closed in again. They put the problem aside to concentrate on more important things.

  Another Mersa came hurrying across to bring Ereth the latest reports on the accelerator’s performance. He read them with a certain amount of satisfaction. Replacing some of the massive electromagnets with superconducting connections to the ice field had reduced power consumption by almost five percent. Orscantium absorbed huge amounts of energy in its production, and any saving freed up power that could be used to make more of the stuff.

  Ereth looked up and saw his team busy at their stations, with everything in the control room running as it should, and felt a glow of pride. The three accelerators on the outer planets were staffed mainly by Mersa, with a smattering of Humans.

  Cordez had said he wanted the bulk of the staff to be Mersa, in recognition of the fact it was their planet, but to maintain the Human element at a certain level. That gave both sides an opportunity to get to know each other better.

  Ereth looked up as a flash of light signalled an Orscantium-driven ship of some sort coming out of star drive far above the planet. He saw it decelerate quickly toward the accelerator complex. Every transmitter, computer and voice-activated outlet in the complex began to chatter at the same time.

  “Ayman Case of Prometheus Javelin two niner four to Alamos accelerator three, named ‘Zeus’. Code alpha red, repeat code alpha red in immediate effect. Evacuate immediately, repeat evacuate immediately.

  “Reaper ships congregating at the edge of the system, repeat Reaper ships imminent, evacuate immediately.”

  There were more flashes of light, and more Javelins appeared overhead.

  Hope they’re going to take it to the Reaper ships, muttered Ereth, who had been something of an agitator in his younger days. He was still ready for a confrontation at short notice.

  He hesitated for a moment at the possible loss of his personal equipment, much of which had been gifts, or brought back cherished memories. Then he snapped himself out of it. An alpha code meant take just the clothes he stood up in.

  Mouthing words of regret, he galvanised his aged, eighty-something legs into action, and made a respectable dash after the others as they headed for the elevators.

  “Move, people, move,” muttered Ayman, looking at the chaos below him on his main screen. His body was already tensing for action as his Javelin squadron took up positions above the complex. The Zeus accelerator had no sub-space messaging capability, and that was an oversight for which the alliance would now pay dearly.

  The only way to warn the complex of Reaper ships on the way to the system had been to send Javelins, and Ayman’s ship had spent fifteen hours in the grey nothingness of star drive to get there. But at least the squadron had beaten the enemy ships to the system.

  It had only been some fine detective work by Comms at Prometheus that had caught the early signs of Reaper ships on the move. The Invardii shipyards had all disgorged their latest warships at precisely the same time. When Comms track
ed a number of them to a central point near the Alamos system, it was clear the accelerators were under threat.

  Ayman looked across at his navs officer, who caught the movement of his head and looked up. She shook her head briskly. No sign of enemy ships approaching the planet yet.

  Below him the first of several ports at the top of the complex slid open. Only a small part of the giant complex was clear of the expanse of ice, and that was where the shuttles were kept. Ayman breathed a sigh of relief – then every alarm on the bridge went off.

  Reaper ships materialised above the complex. There had been no warning they were coming, and Ayman swore. This was a trick the Invardii had used before. Somehow they could come out of a star drive jump inside the gravitational field of a planet, without any of the tell-tale signs of space folding ahead of them.

  The Javelins veered away, and then looped back to engage the enemy ships individually. Ayman kept an eye on the ports at the top of the complex, and watched the first shuttle emerge into the weak light of the Alamos sun. It fled across the ice plain for the mountains on the horizon.

  That was the gathering point for emergency evacuations, a small depot for science teams when they were away from the complex. Somewhere that could supply power and food until help arrived.

  The depot had certainly not been built with the idea of an alien invasion in mind, he grimaced, but it was the only safe place for the staff right now. The Javelins couldn’t take on refugees in the middle of a hostile engagement.

  More enemy ships arrived, and Ayman realised his squadron was hopelessly outnumbered. The Invardii must have worked out how important the accelerators were to the alliance, and sent an overwhelming force to destroy the Zeus complex.

  Despite that, the Javelins had to buy time for the staff of the complex to make it to safety, and he gave the order to attack. The ships of his squadron closed to rake the massive orange ships with salvos of super-dense slugs.

  Ayman watched as dull red stains spread across the Reaper ship hulls. It was annoying, but he had expected that. The Invardii had recently developed a way to burn off the slugs as they entered the fiery shields of their ships.

  Hoping for the best, he barked a quick command, and his weapons officer sent two of Carlos Paula’s shield-busting missiles curving in toward the nearest enemy ship. A thin violet web built itself out from several of the ships around it, and toward the incoming points of light.

  The missiles detonated before they were even half way to their target, and the shields remained unaffected. Ayman sat up in his seat. He ordered the same manoeuvre again, with the same result, then ordered a general attack by the Javelins.

  The pattern was repeated again. The missiles never even came close to their targets.

  The Invardii had found a way to stop the missiles as well! Ayman dropped his head and gripped the armrests of his chair. What was he supposed to do now? The Javelins were still protected by the Druanii shields, but they had no other way to take the fight to the enemy ships. It was a desperate situation.

  CHAPTER 8

  ________________

  As Ayman Case looked on helplessly, the Reaper ships turned their attention to the accelerator complex in the ice field below. More shuttles had risen from the ports at the top of the complex, and were heading for safety, but now bright fireballs began to rain around them.

  The first fireballs hit the ice and earthed in crimson flashes, leaving behind small lakes of melted water. Gouts of sublimated gases coalesced above them and rained back down as crystals. The lakes froze, leaving what looked like dimples in the ice from Ayman’s great height above the ice field.

  Then several of the fireballs landed on the complex, and seared through the uppermost levels. The one atmosphere pressure within blasted debris into the sky like a giant geyser.

  Heaven help those poor bastards if they’re not in the shuttles by now, muttered Ayman, as he thought desperately of ways he could keep the Reaper ships from destroying the accelerator complex completely.

  A shuttle rose out of the damaged ports and was struck by a fireball. It spun erratically until it stabilised again, but the craft had clearly lost power. It drifted sideways and down, landing on the ice a short distance from the complex. Another shuttle made it clear of the complex, saw the situation, and landed beside its comrade. The enemy ships were intent on the destruction of the complex, and overlooked the rescue operation as suited figures transferred hastily between the shuttles.

  Ayman cheered quietly to himself. Then he snapped out a series of commands to his squadron. The only thing that might still work against the Reaper ships was to overload their plasma shields. The alliance had done it before, defending Earth, but on that occasion the Sumerian warships had been there to add their energy weapons. What would happen this time round was unknown.

  Down on the ice plain the last of the figures scrambled into the rescuing shuttle, and Ereth turned to the fresh-faced young technician who was nervously piloting the small craft.

  “Go, go, go!” he yelled, and the technician scrambled to obey. The shuttle lifted off, a little erratically, and resumed its journey toward the mountains on the far side of the ice plain.

  Above the planet Ayman Case led his squadron in close formation past one of the enemy ships, and the impact of super-dense slugs built to a frighteningly fast crescendo. The Reaper ship’s shield dulled, then flickered out altogether. A cheer went up from the officers on Ayman’s bridge, and Ayman smiled to himself.

  More slugs rammed into the structure of spars and hubs inside the ship, and it blew apart in a great cascade of explosions. The new ‘seek and destroy’ mode for the slugs was working perfectly. The improvement in the homing capabilities of the slugs allowed them to home in on vital spots inside the enemy ships, and not just pass straight through. Ayman was extremely grateful for that.

  The destruction of one of their own didn’t deter the remaining Reaper ships, and they continued raining fireballs onto the accelerator complex. Ayman glanced at the scene below him. A shuttle took advantage of a moment’s respite to climb quickly from the shattered remains of the complex, before veering sideways as a fireball nailed the spot it had occupied a second before.

  Now that’s one damn good pilot! thought Ayman appreciatively. The shuttle made two more sudden moves as it cleared the site, anticipating fireballs each time, and accelerated toward safety. Ayman wondered about the pilot, and decided he or she must have had combat experience. The shuttle pilots were usually technicians who had little more than basic training. All they had to do was ferry staff and materials up and down to supply ships.

  The comms officer relayed a message to Ayman from the shuttles.

  “Zeus command, all personnel clear,” came the message over an open channel.

  Ayman felt relieved. His first priority had been the people who crewed the accelerator complex, and they were now safe. His next priority had been to save the complex. He looked below him and decided it was too late for that.

  The precision-made nuclear accelerator under the complex would have collapsed long ago under the attack, though some of the parts might still be salvageable. The mines around the planet that fed the complex were much deeper under the ice, and that would make them more difficult for the Invardii to destroy. It was ironic that the ice fields made mining difficult, but were the best defence they had.

  Ayman targeted another Reaper ship, and his squadron moved in to rake it with broadsides once again. This time the enemy ships moved to defend the one that was threatened, and the arcs of fire from their plasma hulls built up until there were continuous flares like the coronas of suns around the attacking Javelins. Ayman worried how much stress the Druanii shields could take, and decided to ease his ships back to a safer distance.

  It was a stand-off, but numbers were on the side of the Invardii. Ayman estimated there were over a hundred of them, though no more had entered the system for some time. That was more than enough to keep his squadron busy, and still leave a siz
eable force to go about their destructive business at the mining bases.

  As if in response to his thoughts, more than half the Reaper ships stood off from the complex, and began to make their way toward the twin peaks of Celimeesi, the highest mountain on the planet. The largest of the alliance mining centres had been built at the foot of it. The centre coordinated the smaller mines, and housed a permanent squad of maintenance engineers.

  Ayman swore vigorously. The Invardii were not content to destroy the nuclear accelerator, they wanted to wipe every trace of the alliance off the planet! He ordered another coordinated attack on one of the enemy ships, and in the pandemonium of battle his navs officer failed to detect eight more Reaper ships come out of star drive. They dipped below the horizon, and came at the small depot in the mountains from the opposite side.

  By now those shuttles that had escaped the complex had landed at their destination, and their inhabitants were taking up residency in the cramped quarters at the depot.

  “Not good, not good. Very not good!” said Serostrina, Ereth’s second-in-command, as she picked up eight Reaper ships entering the thin atmosphere of the ice planet some distance away. Then they headed for the depot. Ereth left his position supervising the setting up of a more permanent life support, and came to her side. When he saw the feed from the small dish on top of the building, his mind raced with the implications.

  The Javelins were too busy to come to their aid. The first fireball that hit the depot would breach the roof, and expose them all to the poisonous atmosphere and freezing temperatures. Though the temperature was far beyond freezing, they would be solid in an instant.

  He was trying to find a solution. Should they take to the shuttles again? How long would the shuttles last if all the mining bases were wiped off the planet? What if the Invardii left a few ships around to pick up any stragglers like themselves?