He paused.
"Before we think about what to do next," he continued, "you need to be brought up to date on a few things.
"Information has been slow coming in lately because a node in our communications network has gone dark. It's the sergeant-major in the Atlas mountains."
Don didn't know what to feel. The sergeant-major had been very clear about what his fate would be, and he had accepted it fully. Feeling regret seemed to dishonour the man.
"The Atlas mountains node was a crucial part of our network," said Cal, "and information has been re-routed through sites which are unmanned most of the time; but here's the latest information I have.
"Three of the five space ports have commenced operation. They're building rockets similar in shape to the Russian heavy lifters, and they're building them on the launch pads from the ground up. We think that's what the nanobots' hunt for biomass is all about. The rockets will have a fusion reactor providing heat, and they need suitable mass to turn into a superheated gas for propulsion.
"The Aeskri are building a space platform at the Lagrange point between the Earth and the Moon. That's the most energy efficient place to launch for the rest of the Solar System, so that's probably what they're going to do. What they might be planning after that is guesswork."
Don shrugged. What the Aeskri were doing in space didn't matter. Stop them in Cambodia and Peru, and everything else could be dismantled later.
"The US operation against the Peruvian citadel started two days late," said Cal, and there was a murmur of disappointment. It was essential both citadels be knocked out around the same time – if it could be done at all.
"The terrain they had to traverse in Peru was worse than what we've got here," said Cal, "which is why they were delayed. They have a much larger force, and heavier weapons, but progress against the Aeskri has been slow.
"Their ultimate plan is to get a portable nuke inside the citadel, but that seems unlikely. They haven't been able to get as far as the walls of the place yet. They had air support at the start, but that was knocked out of the sky almost immediately."
There was more, including the state of other groups in the resistance network, and the likelihood of more soldiers and supplies arriving at the base camp in the near future. Then Cal sat down. He waved in Don's direction.
"There's one ace up our sleeve I haven't told you about, and I would like to address that now. Over to you, Don."
Don felt like a magician, about to unveil a spectacular trick. Everyone at the camp had seen images of the three symbiotic types of the invaders, but had little chance to think about them lately. He needed to prepare his audience for what was coming.
"Bear with me," he said, as he took over the controls of a projector and screen in the background.
"We all know about the Aeskri," he said, and showed an image of the creature that had attacked him and Mosha in the citadel. It was in full charge, and had been taken from his helmet cam.
"Izem has given names to the other two types," he said, "which seems right, since his people have worked with one of their ships for so long. He called the females the Imma, which means the mothers, and the smaller black creatures the Awal, which means the keepers of the word, or historians."
He clicked another image up on the screen.
"This is a better picture of an Awal, and you can see they're more upright than the original images show. We also know they're more scientifically minded than the Aeskri.
"I don't know how to say this diplomatically," he continued, "but we found an Awal inside the buried ship at Izem's village. If you look at the picture you'll see a cluster of Sufian's electronic gizmo's on the right side of the control panel in this picture."
He was right. Otherwise the picture showed I Wadu working controls in what could be any of the alien ships. Don had deliberated about using this photo, and decided it was best if the camp saw him working alongside the resistance from the start.
A roar of conversation filled the chamber, and Don waited patiently until it died down a little.
"All right, calm down!" he said firmly. The noise died away.
"His name is I Wadu, and he is a 'he'. All of his symbiotic form are male – except in exceptional circumstances, and that's another story. It's due to him that we've come so far in understanding the alien technology.
"His ship thawed out his frozen embryo when it saw the Aeskri were close to mounting a full-scale invasion. He's about fifteen years old. We think a state of civil war has developed over the centuries between the Awal and the Aeskri."
There was an awed silence. It was an orphan story on a grand scale. Don turned toward the gallery leading off to the IT headquarters, and waved to Jo. She brought I Wadu forward. His small, dark eyes moved quickly about the room.
"He's lived all his life on Earth, and much of that outside his ship," said Don. "We all have the same bugs. You can get close to him."
Colonel Thapa was the first to come forward. He stopped in front of I Wadu and looked at him curiously. "It's good to meet you, I Wadu," he said slowly. Don told the tall, black figure who Thapa was.
The beeps and chirps of I Wadu's answer were turned into words by Dassin's translation device. "You are Don's friend, Colonel Thapa. You also fight the Aeskri. I am pleased to meet you."
I Wadu extended something more like a tentacle than a hand. Flexible palps on either side of the blunt end showed how his species had learned to hold and manipulate objects. Thapa carefully took the proffered appendage and shook it twice.
"I'm sure we all have a thousand questions," said Don, "but we'll have to keep them for later. Right now, I want to suggest a new strategy."
He waited until everyone was sitting again.
"Our best bet is a small team creeping in under the noses of the Aeskri to gain access to the citadel's electronic systems. Once we have a measure of control, we can open the bay doors and take the citadel guards off line. That will make the situation more of a level playing field for our forces.
"Then we find these Aeskri and show them how we fight!"
A roar filled the rocky space.
63
Cambodian citadel
Phnum Sankoh wildlife sanctuary, Cambodia
Jo had never been covered in mud before. I Wadu seemed to revel in it, probably due to some race memory about removing parasites in the wild. For Don it was a standard camouflage medium.
The water intake for the citadel was in the valley that drained the wetlands. Don was hoping they could travel along it without getting submerged. The base camp didn't have anything like scuba gear.
Their first look inside the intake was a revelation. It was too small to stand up in, and only roughly circular. Large, irregular plates had been joined in untidy seams where metal had been swirled around like mortar. It looked like a welder from the Impressionist period had been at work.
A bulky motor at the start of the intake tunnel somehow drove water from the river uphill toward the citadel. The rules of physics were the same on any planet. A powerful pump could push water to a great height, but a pump that tried to suck water up would fail as air pockets formed.
Don counted up his little party, five including himself, and motioned them forward. Jo looked at him, the whites of her eyes the only thing showing in her camouflage outfit. I Wadu was right behind her, sticking as close as he could. Don smiled briefly and walked past them to take the lead. The light from the entrance soon faded behind them, and they switched to night goggles.
There was room around the metre-thick water pipe, but not much. Rifles and packs had to be balanced as they sidled their way along. The team hadn't travelled far when they came to a solid partition that blocked off the tunnel, though the pipe continuing through it.
Don took something the size of a frisbee out of his pack, and pealed a plastic cover off one side. He pressed the same side onto the middle of the partition. Then he inserted two leads from a small battery pack into the back of it, and motioned the others back
.
"The Rohifs swear this stuff will work on most of the citadel alloys," he said quietly, "let's hope we're in luck."
He pressed a button, and the high-Amp battery pack discharged in moments. Smoke began to drift out from the edges of the contraption. When the smoke stopped, Don peeled the frisbee away from the partition. He slid the battery back down the tunnel with his boot. It was too hot to touch. The partition looked unscathed.
"Is that it?" hissed Mosha, looking unimpressed.
Don smiled, and pressed a wad of cloth against the metal surface. He rapped sharply on the material, absorbing the sound, and the metal of the partition crumbled away. It didn't take Don and Mosha long to remove ninety percent of what remained.
The pipe ended a little further on, in a brief widening of the tunnel. It split into three smaller pipes that went different ways. Don chose the one going uphill, figuring it would be the first to come out inside the citadel.
A short climb later they were inside a closed space packed with equipment. It was just recognisable as plumbing, and several control boards.
Jo asked I Wadu if they could break into the citadel systems using the boards, but he turned down the idea. This was only a subsidiary station, and the IT team needed access to the main control panels.
Sufian tackled a panel on one side of the closed space while the others rested against a rough surface on the other. Don recognised the material of the citadel walls. At least they had made it inside the citadel.
Sufian slid the panel back enough for Don to poke an optic fibre lens through the gap. After a brief look on the other side he nodded, and Sufian slid the panel all the way back.
They stepped out into a corridor, and once again the lights were too bright. It took human eyes a while to adjust. I Wadu was their guide. He knew the layout of the buried ship, but was the citadel run on the same lines?
He hesitated, then unfurled two of his 'arms' and pointed to the right. A short distance further on, the corridor met two others at a spacious central junction. I Wadu went straight to a pattern of lights on the wall.
Don felt uneasy. The same pattern of lights had been on the hub Mosha tried to destroy a week ago, and that had set off alarms. How sensitive were these things?
Don wasn't the only one who was jumpy. The tall man took up a wary position on guard with Mosha beside him. That left Jo and I Wadi setting out the equipment they would need while Sufian took the front panel off.
"Have you noticed that faint smell," whispered Mosha. Don nodded.
"This is an area the Aeskri live in. Enough of us in one place would leave a distinctive smell too – no matter how good the air scrubbers.
"I thought we might come up in a service area, or an industrial basement, but it looks like we're right in their living room."
"No shit?" said Mosha, the tension vibrating in his voice.
"We're in to their systems," said Jo quietly, and Don felt himself tense up all over again. There was a good chance the Aeskri would notice someone interfering with the electronics.
I Wadu chirped something. Jo murmured, " we've got control of the bay doors," and Don wished they would hurry up. Once the resistance fighters poured into the citadel, the IT team's little side action might pass unnoticed.
"The energy arcs need a higher authorisation," said Jo. "I Wadu's trying something. He has Awal DNA, and the system might recognise that. It's a long shot."
Seconds later there were bright yellow lights everywhere, and the floor began to beat an urgent tattoo under their feet. Don swore.
"We're in!" said Jo, and I Wadu chirped something she didn't bother to translate.
"Sufian's opening all the bay doors simultaneously." she said, and Don relaxed a little. That was the agreed signal for the resistance to attack.
Mosha swept his rifle round to cover the corridor behind them, and began firing. Don followed his example, and saw an Aeskri almost upon them. The beating of the floor had disguised the sound of its charge, and they had moments left.
Don started firing single shots at the creature's eyes. He was unlikely to hit such a small target something that was moving so fast, but he wondered how heavily its head was protected by the shield. The Aeskri dropped its head, irritated by the bullets, but kept coming.
Mosha rolled away as the Aeskri lowered a massive spiked shoulder and tried to gore him. He escaped an impaling, but the outflung arm that followed picked him up and flung him against the wall. He hit hard, and dropped to the floor unconscious.
Sufian knelt beside him, but there was nothing the IT man could do. He flattened himself on the floor beside Mosha, hoping to stay out of the conflict until he could get back to the panel and help the resistance further.
Don backed up, keeping the single shot alloy bullets bouncing off the creature's head. I Wadu had disappeared, but Jo was still working frantically at the control panel. Now she turned away from it, and took a quick step toward Don. A massive arm knocked her onto her back, and then the Aeskri was standing over her. It bellowed something primeval that was never intended to be intelligible.
Don shouted, and waved the rifle over his head, trying to move the Aeskri's attention away from Jo. The massive creature looked at him, and back at her, and picked her up by one leg. It was an intelligent creature, it had worked out that Jo was important to Don.
The Aeskri shook her, and Jo screamed as bones in her leg cracked. Then something dropped from the top of the wall above the control panel, and I Wadu landed on the Aeskri's shoulders.
Don saw him spread his flexible limbs on either side of the creature's neck, and knot them together in front. A muscular flick pushed one side a little further, and then the other, ever tighter around the Aeskri's bull-like neck.
The creature's shield had to be like the new materials the army was developing, flexible material that stiffened under impact. The shield didn't know how to cope with I Wadu's unrelenting pressure.
Don knew what the little guy was doing. For a stranglehold he would drop one hand into the crook of the other arm, so that curling the first arm back gave a greatly increased leverage to the choke.
The Aeskri dropped Jo so it could try and remove I Wadu, but its short, blunt fingers couldn't get under his body. Don emptied the rest of his alloy bullets into its eyes in one burst. It wasn't moving around so much this time, and Don's aim was good. The shield held, but he heard the creature bellow its pain. Don grabbed Jo by the shoulders and dragged her away. She stifled a cry as her legs dragged over the floor.
Don looked up, and saw blood pulsing out from under I Wadu. He didn't know which of the two it belonged to. Then the Aeskri toppled over backward, slamming its smaller attacker against the wall. The sudden blow had no effect on I Wadu.
The death throes of the Aeskri were gruesome by any standard. It choked to death on its own blood – eventually.
64
Cambodian citadel
Phnum Sankoh wildlife sanctuary, Cambodia
Don helped Jo to a sitting position. She leaned heavily on his arm.
"The citadel's energy weapons are off line," she managed, through gritted teeth. Don had never seen anyone so white. She was bloodless.
"Including the energy arcs round the outside?" he said, and she nodded.
They both looked across at I Wadu, and saw him working his way out from under the Aeskri's massive head.
"You all right, little brother?" said Don, and I Wadu answered in English. His voice was lower than usual, though still at the top of the human range, and he was trembling. The young Awal was exhausted.
"I will live," were his words. "The blood you see is his."
There was a terrible wound across the back of the Aeskri's neck, and Don decided now was not the time to ask I Wadu about it.
Then Mosha was sitting up, with Sufian supporting him. Mosha's eyes opened for a moment, but when Sufian let go, he sank back onto the floor. Don slid Jo gently across to the wall and propped her up with her pack behind her. Then he jogged over an
d cut a slit in Mosha's trousers. He jabbed something into the exposed flesh, and stood back. Mosha came to his feet with a roar, and looked wildly around. Don waited until his patient knew where he was.
"You spike me?" said Mosha, and Don nodded. That much adrenaline and painkiller would get a dead horse up off the floor. It was a little trick the SAS used for emergencies only.
"Operational status!" he snapped, and Mosha did a quick self-check.
"Possible broken arm," he said, "cracked or broken ribs, lump on the back of my head. Ah, I think we'll need to sling that arm."
Don nodded. The bump on the head worried him, but Mosha didn't look like a man who was concussed. He improvised a sling. Then he reloaded the rifles, and handed one to Mosha. With the sling taking the weight of his damaged arm, it looked like Mosha could handle the rifle well enough.
"We better move . . ," said the tall man, moments before Mosha touched his ear and pointed. Then they could all hear it. The rattle of gunfire, and the clatter of machines mixed with the roar of the Aeskri.
"The strike force is inside the citadel!" said Don, with a smile on his face. He looked at Mosha, and then at the IT team. He was wondering where to put the team out of harm's way.
"The cupboard where we came in," said Mosha. "Best place for them, if Sufian can slot the panel back into place behind them." Sufian nodded.
Jo shook her head. "You need us here. The Aeskri are going to try and over-ride the changes we've made from another control panel. We need to be able to stop that. We can also slow them down; close doors, give their machines false commands.
"We need to stay with the control panel."
"You can't even stand up!" said Don.
"Splint my leg and give me morphine," she said firmly. "If it's good enough for Mosha, it's good enough for me!"
Don grinned at that. She had him in a bind.
"We can squeeze in behind these side panels if we need to," said Sufian, expertly flicking open the panel at his feet in seconds.
Once Jo was propped up against the control panel, and the other two members of her team were working away industriously at the electronics, she waved Don imperiously away.
Struggle for a Small Blue Planet Page 28