Struggle for a Small Blue Planet

by Warwick Gibson

  Once the mortar crews had a visual on the camel pen, Mosha's group would be cut to pieces if they opened fire. Someone had to take out the mortars.

  "We have to get the German moukalla on this side of the valley if we want to stop the mortars," said Bull, pointing at the advancing crews. Mosha had to admit the quietly spoken soldier was right.

  "If we can overrun the mortars," said Izem, "we could use their own weapons against them. Their camel lines would stampede at the first round."

  It was an ambitious change to the existing plan.

  "And how are we going to do that?" said Mosha.

  "By using our own camels," said Izem.

  Mosha looked at him dubiously.

  "It can be done," said Izem confidently, "but first we have to deal with the troops in the middle of the valley. The ones at the top of the rise will be, I think, another camel-solvable problem."

  "I hope so," said Mosha cautiously. He wasn't at all sure how the Imazighen leader would arrange that.

  Izem sent one of his fighters back to the village with a message. The man retreated along the covered trench and into the shallow gully, leaving his rifle and equipment behind to hasten his passage.

  "The moukalla will open fire on my signal," said Izem, "but that will attract retaliation from the troops on the rise. I'm not sure how long they can hold out once that happens."

  "We'll have to move closer," said Mosha, "and take some of the heat on ourselves."

  Izem nodded.

  "And there's not much cover out there," said Mosha carefully.

  "It won't be for long," said Izem. "We just need to get the ones on the rise pinned down."

  "Another trick with camels?" said Mosha.

  "Yes, camels," agreed Izem, "and koummya."

  Mosha had no idea what that was, but figured he would find out.

  Izem had a short, curved sword slung under his robes, one of the indications he was an Imazighen leader. He lifted the weapon up beside his head and angled it, so sunlight swept across the cliffs opposite. Moments later the German rifles cracked loudly, and some of the troops advancing up the centre of the valley fell backwards.

  The troops on the rise replied immediately, bullets gouging the sandstone all along the cliff face. Mosha barked a short command, and the top of the camel pen flamed along its length. Bullets stitched across the troops in the valley, a strange rhythm of short, carefully sighted bursts.

  The cliff face roared again, and then both sides of the crossfire settled into a steady fusillade. Anything moving in the middle of the valley died in minutes. None of the troops made it to cover.

  But then the mortars chimed in, two rounds exploding at the base of the cliff, and one above the storage rooms. The second lot of shells ripped holes in the sandstone, and an Imazighen fighter tumbled out of a room that had been blasted open. He tried to crawl away, but was stilled by fire from the top of the rise.

  Mosha led his group out of the camel pen and through the stakes and lines in front. They made it to a small amount of cover fifty metres out before they were seen, but then a barrage of concentrated fire pinned them down.

  The fighters in the storage rooms left a narrow defile in the sandstone at a run, and dropped into another shallow gully. They were holding the specialised long rifles low and clear. Mosha saw one of them get hit, and the others carry him on, until all of them were safely hidden.

  The rifle fire swung back to Mosha and his group once more. Udad gave a muffled grunt as a bullet whizzed past his ear and furrowed down his leg. It was hard for any of them to pick a target with the rain of sand and grit that was being kicked up in front of them.

  Bull stopped firing to wipe grit from his eyes, but then they heard the first hard crack as one of the German rifles fired from the camel pen behind them. The others soon followed, and the rifle fire from the top of the rise slowed as the troops hugged the ground. But at best it was a stalemate - where were Izem's camels?

  A strange drumming sound erupted from the direction of the Imazighen village, now two hundred metres behind Mosha's position. Several camel trains appeared, fully loaded, the animals roped together from overnight tethering. The pegs were still attached to the ropes, and they were kicking up sand and dirt as they stuck in the ground and pulled loose again. At times the pegs would strike the camels or their loads, causing a flat drumming sound against the wooden frames, and terrifying the animals.

  As far as Mosha knew, the camels had been left in the pens at the far end of the valley. They had certainly not been loaded for a long trip. Izem had to be behind this.

  The camels headed for the nearest open space, driving straight down the middle of the valley. They shied around the dead men and carried on. The shooting died away as both sides watched the spectacle in amazement. Some of the troops opened up on the animals, with most of the bullets missing or striking the loads on their backs.

  Mosha heard a sharp bellow from the rise, and the troops ceased fire. He figured the soldiers had been told to save bullets. Subduing the village would have already taken more ammunition than the officers expected.

  At the last minute the camels started to fan out, some turning toward the rise and some circling away. It looked like the first lot would bypass the troops on the rise, but when they drew level with the soldiers they changed direction. The remaining mob had also swept around and were approaching the troops from the other side.

  Disconcerted by the approach on two fronts, the soldiers had little chance to organise before the camels were among them. The loads on their backs unfurled as Imazighen tribesmen dropped to the ground. Brandishing a dagger in each hand – the koummya Izem had alluded to – they fell upon their enemies, slicing throats and driving steel into hearts.

  The Berbers were fearsome knife fighters, hardened in a dozen wars of the last hundred years, and the skills they learned had been passed down through the generations. Practicing with wooden daggers was still a favourite winter pastime in the village.

  Some of the troops had enough time to fight back, and several of the Berbers fell to short bursts from the AK 47s. Izem called sharply to the men with the German rifles. Any of the Tinghir soldiers who rose to engage the Berbers crumpled, as carefully considered shots thumped out from the camel pen.

  Then the rise was clear of the enemy.

  39

  Imazighen village

  Atlas Mountains, North-west Africa

  Izem called out something in Tamazight, the Imazighen language, and his men surged forward. Mosha followed, Jo and Bull taking left and right flank behind him. Udad was struggling to keep up, and Jo grumbled under her breath. Her paramedic training was troubling her. She wanted a field dressing on his leg as soon as they stopped, and maybe a stitch or two across the wound.

  "We have to take out the mortars while they're in the open," said Izem, breathing more deeply as he lengthened his stride. "We can't wait for that last company of troops to get organised."

  The mortar crews were currently heading back down the slope toward the original rocky outcrop, and a number of troops were moving up to support them.

  Mosha agreed with Izem. The villagers on the top of the rise should turn and strike at the mortar crews right now, but it seemed a hard call for exhausted and shaken fighters who'd just lost some of their own. On the other hand he had come to realise what the villagers were capable of in defence of their land. At least they now had some captured AK 47s.

  Izem shouted a few more words in the Imazighen language, and his people began to call their camels in. By the time Mosha's group reached the rise, half the camels had riders. Izem's men began to explain how the captured rifles worked.

  "Ever ridden a camel before?" said Izem, and Mosha nodded. Recreational stuff in the Middle East mostly. He doubted he could ride and shoot at the same time. Jo and Bull shook their heads.

  The Tinghir camel trains, including the one that had carried the mortars, were tethered halfway down the long, gentle slope leading up to the valley. Mos
t of them were still heavy laden, and were being moved out of what was now the front line. There was activity further down the slope as the same three officers on horseback organised their men.

  The attack on the rise had taken the Tinghir troops by surprise, but the Berbers would have to follow up on their success soon. As if to reinforce that fact, the mortars began to fire again, ranging shots landing close to Izem and the camels. The Berbers moved quickly to clear the rise, but it would only take the mortar crews a few minutes to re-position their equipment, and start shelling them again.

  "We need the camels to feint down the right side of the slope while we follow that gully down on the left," said Mosha, pointing. "If we position the German rifles where the gully changes direction, they can give us cover while we leapfrog past. Then we can set up a position fairly close to the mortars.

  "We've still got a supply of grenades," he continued, "and we just have to hope the troops haven't."

  Izem nodded, and called Udad over from where he was teaching the camel riders how to load magazines. Udad was walking more easily with his wound bandaged, and some painkillers in his system.

  A few minutes later the camels streamed down the slope toward the mortar positions. Scattered fire from troops in the outcrop of rocks caused little damage at a distance. Keeping to the plan, the camel riders veered off before they got too close.

  The German rifles moved into position down the gulley on the left, but Mosha and his group found themselves pinned down before they were close enough to the mortars to do any damage.

  The officers behind the troops had realised the mortars were under threat. They were now goading their men forward into a ragged advance. It was beginning to look like the battle would be decided in bloody close-quarters fighting, when the troops came to a stop. Mosha could hear the officers screaming at them to move, and there was the sharp report of a sidearm, but the men stayed put.

  Mosha turned to look behind him. Close to a thousand villagers, men and women from Izem's village and the surrounding villages that had taken shelter with them after the earthquakes, formed a solid wall across the top of the slope.

  Those with hunting weapons had reloaded them, and most were brandishing the Imazighen daggers. There were a number of long lances Mosha had never seen before. He smiled. More of Izem's doing, he thought. The message to the troops below them was clear – is it worth it?

  Mosha called a halt in the firing, and Izem repeated the words in Tamazight. This was not a time for bravado. If the Tinghir forces wanted to leave, the Berbers would not stop them.

  A heated discussion broke out along the enemy lines. Finally, the troops began to retreat. It was unclear what was happening to the officers, but there was no more use of sidearms.

  The Berbers watched as the broken army gathered up its equipment, and left. Mosha figured it had lost more than a third of its forces. Scattered in a loose group around the camel trains – a dispirited mob, really – the men began the long walk back to Tinghir. No doubt the 'Lord of the Atlas Mountains' would be most unhappy with them when they arrived.

  Leaving behind a substantial rearguard, in case of any further, but unlikely, trouble, most of the village scrambled for the rockfall. The shattered sandstone boulders were too big to be pulled away by hand, and when tools were brought from the village, the first boulder to move brought down two in its place. Everyone froze.

  "No! Qua, borrow. Eh, burrow!" said an old woman at the front of the villagers, waving her arms in Mosha's face. He looked at Izem, who looked across at the oldest man on the High Council, the one he had met with Don. The old man shrugged his shoulders, the universal symbol for 'why not?'

  The old woman started barking orders, and some of the more agile women and younger men began to rake out debris using the smallest tools. They went in where larger boulders leaned together, forming a safe support overhead. Three promising burrows began to snake in under the rockfall.

  It was slow work, and night was falling when two of the smallest young men finally freed Graham. One went ahead, pulling the SAS soldier, and the other pushed. They twisted him slowly through a succession of narrow spaces, trying to protect a crushed arm and several broken ribs. Half way along the tortuous passage he became unconscious, and his groans ceased.

  One look at him had Jo and Mosha scrabbling in their med kits. Three separate needles put him into an induced coma, to help his body overcome the shock of its injuries. They had no idea how they were going to maintain him in that state without modern hospital services.

  It was a wonder he hadn't bled out, and there was no way of giving him the treatment he desperately needed to save his arm. They could rig a primitive transfusion system, one that was reasonably sanitary, but it was a long process to determine unknown blood types in the field. Fortunately they found two matches for Graham among those who knew what their blood type was.

  It was past midnight when they found Don.

  40

  Lake Adelaide

  Southern Alps, New Zealand

  Despite observing the alien carrier through two more round trips to the mining site, the team were left with no easy options. The machine didn't stay open long enough for them to clamber aboard, and up close it put out a fierce radiant heat after the strange 'smelting' process.

  Their one hope was that the entrance to the citadel would accept them as part of the carrier, if they were close enough to it. The machine rolled on a number of rubbery spheres that seemed to morph out of a nominal keel as they were needed. How it stayed upright on such a two-dimensional arrangement was unclear.

  There was enough room for all four of them under the carrier if they moved along in a 'flattened frog' manner. Not a position any human being could maintain for long.

  A hundred metres out from the complex, the team moved into position behind the slow-moving machine. At fifty metres the two men scrambled into the frog position and worked their way along the sides of the carrier until they were near the front. Shortly after that the women followed their example, staying near the back.

  Cathy's muscles were already screaming when the slab-like door descended behind them. She was trying not to sob when Tomas gave the signal to roll out and follow the carrier, bending themselves double and tucking in against its sides. Seven days of training at Waiouru had not been anywhere near enough for her.

  She noticed movement around them, and tried to press herself even closer to the carrier. A small machine passed by, almost close enough to touch. It was piloted by something with metal arms sitting in an indentation at the front.

  She tried to slow her breathing. Tomas had impressed upon them that their best defence was to remain unnoticeable. If they had to shoot their way out, the mission had already failed.

  It wasn't long before she noticed the heat. The inside of the building felt like the air conditioning was on high, but it was a dry heat, dry as desert sands. Cathy felt the inside of her nostrils begin to cake. The next thing she noticed was the occasional flares of light.

  The carrier had moved into a corridor, and there was no real illumination along it. It became clear the bursts of light were a byproduct of what was happening in the rooms off to the side. Adjusting the night googles became a constant, and fiddly, operation. Much of the light was in the UV range, and Cathy began to suspect a great deal of it was in frequencies the human eye couldn't see.

  They were all nervous now. The mining operation had been automated, but how much of this complex was the same? If the invaders lived on site, were they holed up somewhere with an atmosphere of their own? Had they chosen Earth because it had an atmosphere they could tolerate, or was that incidental to a bigger plan, as Tomas had suggested?

  The team knew little enough about the complex, but someone had to make decisions as they advanced. Cathy decided she liked Tomas leading the way. He knew his way around reconnaissance. If they died here today, she wouldn't blame him for that.

  The carrier rolled along a shallow trench in the floor, and other t
renches came in from the side and crossed their track, almost like city intersections. Entrances were never square in shape, but at least the walls were straight up and down. The building materials appeared to be a light but strong organic composite, rough to the touch. Where were the raw materials for an organic composite coming from?

  The ceiling above started closing in on the top of the carrier, and Cathy could see they were leaving the control centre for the main part of the building.

  When the ceiling was so low they had to duck their heads, the carrier came out on a long, narrow platform. It was suspended from the side of a wall that dropped away many stories below them.

  This part of the complex must have been dug out as a massive cellar, she decided, and then built up as an industrial area. The platform was barely big enough for the carrier, and they were in an elliptical shaft about as wide as the carrier was long – maybe four car lengths. There were no safety railings, and Tomas paired them off to grasp each others hands across the back of the carrier. It was a big stretch.

  The platform started off with a lurch that made them start, but then it descended slowly. Looking across at the other side of the shaft she saw open spaces at decreasing levels. There was movement in those spaces, but all of it seemed to be due to machinery. The oddest thing was the almost total lack of sound.

  The platform stopped at the bottom with a jerk, and the carrier trundled off toward one of the openings in the side of the shaft. Tomas indicated for the team to follow.

  There was more noise at this bottom-most level, but most of it was felt as a deep vibration that worked its way up through the legs and into the bones. Cathy thought for the first time about the power plant that must run the place.

  All the smart money in the science team had been on clean fusion power – the wonder energy Earth was experimenting with – but there could also be reasons the complex was uninhabited. Maybe its power source released radiation deadly to living things, and maybe it was a type of radiation their instruments couldn't detect.