“Attention! All the Patrol Craft have departed.” Terry’s voice was heard throughout the two hangars – upper and lower, as he belatedly favoured his leader-communications equipment. “All personnel must now prepare for a ground attack. Get to your positions, and get all non-combatants into their shelters now!”
“Come on!” Abner Sharif ran towards the doors of the upper hangar as the announcement blared from the loudspeakers. “Time to close up!”
“I’ll get some of that sheet Hybralloy.” Chelsea Buchanan had noticed that the glancing blow of the final Patrol Craft had damaged one of the doors, so she ran to the centre of the floor, her long black hair flying behind her, and shimmered down below.
Several warmly clad workers scraped out the snow from the tracks, pulled and teased the doors, and eventually managed to get the edges together, at least at the top and bottom. About ten metres above the floor, the doors now fitted very poorly – there was a crescent-shaped portion missing from the right hand door, stretching from about eight metres up to about twelve, with a gap in the centre of as much as twenty centimetres, and the door was also bowed out slightly.
“I’ll need a platform.” Chelsea had reappeared, weighed down with the dark metal panels, and made her way over to the damaged part. She dropped the sheets, clambered up the inner framework and stopped just below the relevant point. “This is crazy!’ The wind was funnelling through the gap, making her hair flap around wildly and chilling her cheeks to the point that she could no longer feel them.
Some Marines brought over a mobile maintenance platform and clamped the wheels to hold it in position. One of them picked up the first length of Hybralloy and the others climbed onto the intermediate levels so that the patch could be passed up to Chelsea, now standing more easily on the platform.
“Hey! Taxi!” Stadt had arrived, and he held up an Arshonnan laser pistol, waiting to see that Chelsea had heard him. “I’ve adjusted the settings. You should be able to weld that sheet in place with this. Make it overlap a little; just don’t weld it to both doors!”
Leaving it with the Marines, he gestured to Tony and they headed for one of the pedestrian exits, as everyone laughed – perhaps a little too eagerly, at his weak attempt at humour. As the others, dressed very warmly now and well-encumbered with weaponry, shimmered up and spread out towards the other doors, those assigned to man the final line of defence for the hangar itself continued their clean-up efforts on the snow and ice. Soon the second and third Hybralloy sections were making their way up the platform side. As the last small part of the breach was closed for the final time, the ambient noise level dropped again, until only the sound of the wind – intermittently moaning through the imperfect seal – could be heard. The relative silence was an uneasy one, as in principle they knew, only too well, what this unscheduled and very visible launch of their marvellous secret weapons might mean – what horrors might soon descend to their now very unhidden location, but in actuality, no one present in the hangar had ever faced the Narlavs in battle before, and so none of them could imagine the ferocity of hundreds, or more likely thousands, of battle-hungry Narlav warriors.
High above, already departing the atmosphere, Patrol Craft Fifteen, both Captained and Piloted by Air Force fighter pilot Chella, grinned at his Navigator and Engineer as they unexpectedly found themselves leading the black, drop-shaped vessels that had departed directly from the hangar, pointing the stubby-tapered nose towards the partially illuminated lunar orb, which he realised with eager anticipation would now be growing visibly, minute by minute ahead of them.
Citadel, the first of the ocean departure group, having burst, briefly shimmering, through into the ocean from the tunnel and moments later out of the waves like a massive missile, was being pushed to the limit by Kirrina, taking advantage of the extra power this uniquely configured vessel had been given by Paranak’s painstaking care. The flagship was already a fraction ahead of PC Thirteen, the last of the first, direct departure grouping, and was on a converging track. The other Patrol Craft that had chosen to continue down the tunnel were following close behind.
The most powerful ship in the fleet escaped the limitations of the atmosphere and moments later its scanners located the approaching enemy unerringly.
Paranak finding that they were now just seconds behind PC Seventeen, reviewed their situation: their vaunted and much-practised attack plan was now useless and even their rapid response plan was in shreds; the squadron groupings had been scrambled by their random departure. None of this disturbed him in the least; he pounded himself on the side of the head, elated that the waiting was over at last and the battle was about to be joined.
Richard heard the sound and caught the movement out of the corner of his eye. He smiled slightly, shaking his own head fractionally – a physical impossibility for a Narlav – as he thought about the eagerness for battle, as displayed by both his crewmembers. And, if I were to be honest, me too!
***
“Ah! Patan[40]! Or are they Siph[41]?” Bathan spoke in great excitement, his previous stance of prudence thrown to the wind in the light of the ships appearing one by one out of the ‘soup’ of Earth’s atmosphere, ships that bore no resemblance to what he thought of as the rather pitiful EDEM One, so easily despatched by Varshak about five lunar days earlier. “These Earth Shaatak may indeed prove worthy of our attention, at least for a little while! It would have been unfortunate, almost dishonourable, to take such a jewel without a space battle…” He was more than ready to unleash devastation on these vessels, knowing that the planet he was coveting would not be harmed in such a mêlée.
“It will be a great honour to battle them!” Karnad agreed from his Warrnam, with excitement evident in his transmitted voice. “And to destroy them all!”
“Yes, First!” Uthaner, Bathan’s Navigator-son responded formally. He prepared to adjust his flight plans and calculated the courses of the approaching ships, waiting for the Drive signature analysis to tell him what to expect from the enemy ahead.
“All ships,” Bathan continued, opening his communications channels wide. “It would seem that Varshak was right, these creatures are full of surprises! We will use plan gich[42], though until now it seemed almost impossible that such a contingency could occur. And Varshak, you have the honour of getting your troops down to the launch point of those ships, and must therefore delay your part in this glorious space battle until your advance, ground attack force is deployed. While we destroy their deployed vessels, your troops’ task will be to capture their production facility, and, once they have done that, we will have the means to become stronger than ever before!”
“Understood, First.” The discoverer of the planet before them acquiesced readily to the Rhaal leader’s directives, confident he could deliver the ground forces and return to space in time to help complete the mopping up of the insignificant Patan or Siph, and thinking that he could make his mark during the brief voyage. “Power up every available N-beam,” Varshak advised his Control Room team, looking at Landrak and Otahk in turn, his face fierce with barely restrained excitement. “Perhaps we can take out one of these ships as we pass through their ranks!”
“And, while our troops capture their production facility, we will return in time to finish off the last one,” Landrak promised, his hands on his navigation levers, somewhat predictably echoing his leader’s thoughts.
“After that… surely there will still be some scattered resistance on the ground, and we can go hunting.” Otahk’s eyes gleamed as he prepared his weapons.
“Bring me the human!” Crillak directed Wintkarn as the news from the fleet sounded from the speakers in the Mecuba Control room. “It is time we told him the truth and let him witness the real destruction of the last of his people, before we claim their world for ourselves!”
Wintkarn, having just finished an adjustment of the displays from the Moon-rim monitors to zoom in on the distant ships and perhaps enable them to watch the slaughter of the fool-hardy Earth-shi
ps, though the images would be tantalisingly small, leaned backwards briefly before going to collect the human survivor. It will be interesting to see if his spirit will be broken at last, as he discovers his fellow-prisoner was a fake and that his planet is ours for the taking!
Kevin was sitting in a bit of a daze – as in truth he often was – his back to the wall, when his cell door was flung open and he was dragged out unceremoniously.
“Now may be a good time to die!” Wintkarn told him cryptically as he pinioned his arms at his side with his vice-like grip and propelled him along the corridor.
Soon, Steele found that he was half-thrown into a large room, curiously empty, expect for a wide-windowed opening onto the dark, airless moon’s landscape outside, and a series of viewscreens, showing multiple views of an icy planet from subtly differing angles. The only other occupant of the room was another Narlav. Steele felt his heart pound and his lungs started to heave as he contemplated what he recognised might be his first chance to do something, wondering if his self-conditioning exercises had brought back his strength enough to make a difference.
Crillak looked him over cursorily, seeing only a subdued and weak Shaatak, his breathing laboured and shaky.
“Look closely at these screens.” The Commander of the incapacitated Warrnam directed him in his halting English. “What do you see?”
Kevin looked intently, determining that the land masses of this strange world displayed were almost entirely white, contrasting with the brilliant blue of the oceans between. He found himself shaken by this unexpected development – and somehow knew that what he was seeing was real. “This is not my world,” he stated finally with considerable relief, drawing a long slow breath as he found the only logical explanation. “We are on another moon, somewhere…”
“Ah, but it is your world… or it was, and it will continue to be for only a short time now!” Wintkarn started to enjoy this new game. “We filled your atmosphere with Moon dust and the weather plunged into an instant Ice Age, as your fellow-humans would term it. But all is not lost for your people. Not quite yet – for they have launched a counter-attack!” He left the solitary human standing near his Commander and adjusted the viewscreen controls deftly, bringing the view of Earth even closer, so close that only small portions of the planet could be seen in each image. Then he arbitrarily chose one of the monitors and used the monitor control system to swing it away from the planet slightly, zooming it in far more than the others, and skilfully finding several black blobs within the field of view chosen, each one somewhat blurred and at the absolute extreme range of the scanner’s resolution.
Blood rushed to Commander Steele’s head and he tried to make sense of the story he was now being given, so different from the one that his supposed fellow-prisoner had narrated so convincingly to him over so many cell-bound days. The shapes of the ships far away, near the Earth, were indistinct, and there seemed to be almost no movement, due to the fact, unknown to him, that their motions were either directly towards the scanner – in the case of the advancing Earth force, or directly away – in the case of the Warrnam invasion fleet. His brain seemed to clear completely at last and he realised that his adrenalin was providing the aid he so desperately needed. There are just two of them and I am not shackled. Their over-confidence may give me a chance to do something! He flexed his muscles as he stood free in the presence of his enemies, and waited tensely for the right moment.
***
Kirrina and Beckie connected and touched the minds of the Patrol Craft Captains, finding, as they had anticipated, that together they could contact the other nine commanders of their fleet, though the connection with PC Fifteen, some thirty or forty kilometres ahead, was extremely faint.
Reform into your squadrons! A curious, merged consciousness ‘voice’ touched the minds of the Captains. PC Thirteen, form up with us!
“This is Kirrina, from Citadel,” Richard’s wife continued as the leading ships reduced their velocity to allow the others to catch up. She was now using the highly sophisticated but still conventional communications system present in their ships, as, even combined with Beckie, her mental skills could not hope to reach the hardy individuals they had left behind to continue the construction effort on Earth, now thousands of miles below them. These had been pre-selected to be the last ditch defence between the Narlavs and the production facility – in the event that a ship broke through and landed, and they were now almost certainly going to be tested; they would surely have to prove that they could protect the manufacturing equipment and the two, partly completed Patrol Craft.
“GAF ground forces – prepare for invasion! Our fleet is deployed beyond the atmosphere, forming up into squadrons and heading for an intercept with the approaching Narlav force. We will engage them about a third of the way to the Moon, but some may succeed in breaking through our lines and our trajectories will lead any that get past, directly back to you. This is not quite as we had planned, but remember: we have all the ships we intended to have for this battle and so we still have the firepower needed to beat them. And if any Narlav ship does get past and deploys its ground troops, they will be reliant, at that point, entirely on laser weaponry, as obviously they will then be within Earth’s atmosphere, and each walking warrior will be susceptible to our defensive armaments and to the conventional forces allied to us. We may be just Shaatak to them, but we’ll use everything at our disposal, right down to our teeth and ‘claws’, to defeat them! Stand firm. Good luck!” Karen cut short her speech, as the Warrnam were closing rapidly on their force and she had to choose to concentrate now on piloting and positioning Citadel relative to PCs Eight and Thirteen.
MAXIMUM deceleration! The blended ‘voice’ instructed, as otherwise the approaching Warrnam would slip past, too quickly to be targeted.
“There are eleven ships in two formations of five, led by one.” Paranak confirmed the strength of the opposition at a level significantly less than the maximum that they had privately projected, but significantly more than the number they had openly spoken of. “Exactly one ship for each of our vessels to destroy!”
“And where are the others?” Richard murmured rhetorically, suddenly worried that another group was attacking Earth from the other side, though he knew that the orbital detection system would have sensed vessels on the ‘far side’ of Earth just as easily as it had on the ‘Moonward’ side.
“Unknown,” Paranak growled.
And what other surprises are in store for us?
Here’s one… She got back in time to board PC Thirteen – it was the alarm that alerted her. Frank certainly seems surprised! Kirrina’s reply to Richard ignored the possibility of other Warrnam, though obviously she had heard the conversation between her husband and Paranak.
Richard of course knew, from the mental image accompanying the message, that the female referred to was Amber, and it was obvious to him, now, that there was a secondary reason why Captain Attenburgh’s PC Thirteen had been directed to join their squadron. It was not only because the original plan was in tatters, it was also Karen’s considered ploy, a possible way to protect Ed’s niece during the impending confrontation.
Let’s hope that we will be fortunate enough to hear her berating us for our unsuccessful trickery, after the battle is won! Richard powered up his weapons, one for each hand, and watched as Paranak did the same, though his wife could only spare one hand from her piloting.
She will certainly do that! She’s still seething very loudly, Kirrina responded with a grim grin. So loudly that I can pick up on her thoughts almost as easily as Beckie’s!
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Fire!
“Enemy ships are Siph,” Bathan’s son, Uthaner, announced to his father as soon as the scanner had completed its initial analysis. “Standard Drive ratings for such Arshonnan ships – they are no more powerful than our vessels.” His message was transmitted to the other Warrnam, providing them with a confident assurance of familiarity. In a way characteristic of his
novice standing, however, he had missed detecting the higher power ratings of Citadel and PC Eight, scanning only what were initially the leading ships and discovering complete uniformity amongst them. “The ancient records from the Harklat Thangstorn[43] indicate that these ships will be no match for ours.”
“They are of no consequence;” Varshak dismissed the opposition’s significance, “it is the world beyond them that is our target.” His reminder to his command crew was of the specific directive that they had just been given. “Let’s get through them and put our troops down on the planet – then come back to help finish them off.” He twisted and shifted his feet to allow direct observation of his command crew to either side of his central position. “We will, however, destroy as many as we can, as we make a pass through their ranks.”
Landrak, his pilot, raised both hands high above his head, saluting his leader’s inspiring comments. Otahk made some course correction recommendations in an attempt to enable an effective route, compromising the most direct path to Earth slightly to allow a better chance for maximised Negatruction impact, and Landrak, having made a partial change for the same reason, added this further modification, eager for the brief battle.
“Scatter those ‘little rocks’!” the ‘First’ commanded ‘ship to ship’ with the conceited confidence of crushingly complete clout. “I expect we will destroy several of them as we smash through, perhaps most of them. But we will make them work for a target! Make maximum speed for Earth!”
Crillak growled in frustration as he heard the news and instantly thought of his Warrnam, lying inoperable, not far from his location, on the crater Mare.
Cavalry Page 27
