The Celaran Refuge (Parker Interstellar Travels Book 8)

by Michael McCloskey

  He let himself into the building through a ground level entrance. It actually felt odd to walk right in instead of throwing up a smart rope and scaling the building. The inside was hollow like the Celaran buildings, but narrow lanes extended into the rows of equipment to allow Terrans to move around. His link showed him exactly where Siobhan worked, but he decided to avoid her for a moment and observe.

  A batch of complex machines finished up in the main fabrication line. He saw that as the large metal and carbon objects came out, the machines in his corner of the factory dropped into inactivity. He checked the logs. This section was busy 93% of the time. All of the other sections had a higher usage rate.

  There’s slack here.

  Caden considered what he could do. There wasn’t much capacity available... he could only make something small.

  The Space Force is cranking out torpedoes. If I could get a design or two, I could adapt them to the disk squadron...

  Caden got to work. He sent the fleet a high priority request for their smallest torpedo designs as he set up a virtual workspace on a nearby fabrication controller. The designs came through quickly. He frowned. The smallest one was larger than the missiles they deployed on the disk machines. Caden calculated that the Celaran disks could carry two torpedoes instead of four missiles.

  Caden altered the small design to fit the disks’ clamps. The software on the controller’s virtual workbench made it easy. He scheduled his ordnance for production at the lowest priority. It said he would not have any product for hours; not only did he have to wait for slack time, but the Celaran air supply service would have to drop off new raw materials that were not already stockpiled nearby.

  “I can get you up and running faster,” Siobhan said on a private connection.

  “Oh! Hi. Show me how it’s done, Miss Factory Sorceress,” Caden said happily.

  “Here’s the deal: right now you’re waiting two extra hours for the warhead chemicals. Use this formula. It’s a Celaran equivalent and we have that stuff in local storage.”

  She sent him a pointer. He swapped out the Space Force warhead formula with Siobhan’s suggested replacement. The initial production schedule moved up by over two hours.

  “Thanks!” Caden said.

  “Of course. Now that I saved you some time, why don’t you come over here and do me a favor...”

  ***

  “Team, it’s time. We’re going to attack in three hours,” Telisa said on the PIT channel.

  Relief and a new nervousness rode in together on a wave through Caden’s system. He had been working overnight in the factory. The last few torpedoes had just come off the line. Would he be able to get the rest of the disk machines loaded up? If there was no other work for them to do, it would be easy, but surely the imminent attack meant other last minute tasks would be routed to the Celaran machines?

  “Gather up incarnate here with me,” Telisa said from within the Celaran industrial complex. “We can follow the attack feeds and adjust as necessary.”

  Caden bit his lip and thought about that.

  “Telisa?”

  “Yes, Caden?”

  “I’m making some last minute preparations. I might be late incarnate to get this wrapped up. It’s for the attack.”

  “Then stay. That has priority, of course.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You do plan on enlightening me?” Telisa asked.

  “Yes. I think I can get more torpedoes there, if I can pull this off.”

  “Good.”

  Telisa let the connection drop.

  She trusts me. What other boss would just let me go and run with something and not delay me by asking a thousand questions? I have to make it work.

  Caden routed a few disk machines through to pick up ordnance. The batch of takers he got was small, so he decided to inform the Celaran ‘pilots’ of his plan so they might help. He sent off a quick message to his squadron’s channel.

  The last hours ticked by while Caden coaxed the squadron to come in and arm themselves for the attack in between their regular work assignments. He had already sacrificed his last opportunity to sleep before the attack, but he decided it would be worth it.

  It’s not me who has to fight, it’s the machines.

  The team trickled into a Celaran building to join Telisa. The Celarans coordinating the attack were not present; Caden knew they were controlling their ships from the space hangars. Caden watched the team through an attendant feed. Telisa started to speak.

  “You all know most of the details of our attack. I hinted that this isn’t our real play. Here’s the rest of the plan,” Telisa told them. “The main attack is a noisy distraction. We’ll risk throwing away some of our unmanned ships to test the Quarus in their own environment. Meanwhile, we’re going to try and sneak gravity spinners down there inside some of the big rocks.”

  The last of the disk machines acknowledged their commitment to load up their ordnance in the next ten minutes. Caden collected himself and left the Terran factory. He did not have to be around to oversee any of the rest of it; the machines loaded themselves.

  “Worst case, we’ll disrupt their preparations for their next ground assault,” Telisa continued. “Best case, we capture some Quarus and get them to call off their Destroyers.”

  Caden ran. He wanted to be there incarnate before the attack commenced. He ascended a large vine runner, legs pumping.

  “So the target is the special ship,” Marcant said. “What camouflage did we decide upon for the spinners?”

  “The rock itself,” Siobhan said. “We’ve put fault lines into the payload-bearing asteroids and hidden a spinner inside a large piece of each one. The spinners will remain embedded in their fragments when the rock breaks up. Their rock casings will serve as both camouflage and ablative armor. The spinners can move their casings with them just as they move our ships.”

  “Succeed or fail, we’ll learn more about the enemy,” Telisa said. “I want to see how they handle submarine warfare. It’s a safe bet they’re great at it.”

  “How many do we have to sneak in?” Marcant asked.

  “We have six of these special asteroids with our surprises inside,” Telisa said. “I want the Quarus to think we’ve only slowed down the asteroids to keep the rock from vaporizing on the surface of the ocean on impact. We’ve been trying various impact velocities and measuring their effects on the planet’s ecosystem, as well as looking for clues as to the damage we’re doing to the enemy, so varying closing velocities in this attack should not cause any suspicion. Some rocks with iron cores will go in hot, the ones with spinners will be among the slower ones.”

  Caden reached the fence surrounding the industrial complex. He considered a risky jump over the fence, dismissed it, and continued to run.

  “Here are some new panels for your PVs with the pointers to everything we’ve prepared, including the Celaran-provided intelligence. It’s been integrated into our shared tactical map.”

  Caden wanted to look right away, but he was too busy jumping from the last vine and coming to a special section of fence that had been set up to let Terrans in and out of the complex on their way to the new factory. He passed through a pliant part of the barrier and started across the hardtop beyond.

  “I want those corvettes in the water seconds after these asteroids splash down,” Telisa continued. “The attack will involve many elements close together in time, even though we have to spread out across many kilometers of ocean to keep from being incinerated in our own rock impact zones. We have to stretch their resources to keep them from discovering our real attack.”

  Saturate the defenses. That’s exactly what this torpedo salvo could help do.

  “Does anyone have questions?”

  Caden ran into the room. Everyone looked at him instead of asking anything, so he spoke.

  “My squadron is ready to assist,” Caden announced. His Veer suit had kept him cool and dry, but he still breathed quickly.

  Telisa looked
at him with a neutral face. “What role will they play? Did you modify the disk machines?”

  “I modified a Space Force torpedo design and adapted them to the disk machine missile mountings. The squadron has one full load of two torpedoes each. The disk machines were already capable of operating underwater... you know, the Celarans and their hyper-functionality.”

  Telisa considered that, then nodded.

  “Good. Good job. We can use the extra targets in the water. Also, maybe the disks can scout out dangers for the ships.”

  “If the enemy fights back with torpedoes of their own, the disk machines can intercept,” Caden pointed out. “We would rather lose a disk than one of those corvettes.”

  Caden did not know if the Quarus used torpedoes. They seemed to be wholeheartedly using energy weapons, except for the missiles they shot at space targets. Maybe their missiles were also torpedoes, capable of being used in both roles.

  Telisa did not say anything for a moment. Caden took the opportunity to continue.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t have news of this sooner. It was a last minute thing.”

  By last minute, I mean last nine hours of no sleep.

  Telisa nodded.

  “The schedule has been tight, but now it’s time,” she said.

  Caden saw activity on the system map.

  “The rocks are descending,” Telisa said. “There’s about forty of them. The rocks with our payloads are mixed in among them.”

  Caden closed his eyes and focused on the tactical. There was a lot of information to navigate there, even when organized neatly into dozens of panes in his PV. Unmanned Celaran ships accompanied the asteroid chunks down, slowing the fall of the rocks. The alien ships were perched atop the rocks, using them as shields.

  The robotic Space Force corvettes started their descent. Caden’s squadron waited in the jungle beside the ocean. The attack zone spanned many thousands of square kilometers. He calculated a course out over the waters to arrive with the rocks.

  “We can track the rocks’ descent underwater with the disk machines,” Caden offered.

  “That might be helpful, but it can’t look like we’re escorting the rocks on their way down. It would be too suspicious,” Telisa said.

  “We anticipate jamming as well, so we might not hear from the disks,” Marcant noted.

  “We’ll scatter the squadron so that we have coverage of a wide area. There will only be one machine near each of the asteroids at any given time,” Caden promised.

  Caden passed the instructions along to his Celaran robot handlers: The disk machines could not appear to be protecting the asteroids with the spinner payloads. They acknowledged the plan and agreed to be careful.

  The squadron shot out over the ocean. Caden watched the water, wondering if anything would happen. The disks moved at high speed, causing trails of white mist to rise from the bluish-green waves below them.

  Disks started to explode. Caden watched the numbers rise: three, five, then ten of the robots died. Their fragments scattered and slowed, dropping into the water in hundreds of pieces.

  “The disks are encountering resistance!” Caden reported. He had no idea how they were being killed. He checked the feedback from the disk machines but there were no answers there. The disk robots were not designed for war, so they did not have the death reporting diagnostics of Terran war machines. “Probably energy weapons sourced from under the water!”

  Caden had knew that powerful EM projections could travel through many mediums, though their behavior varied across materials and especially at the junctures between materials. Apparently the Quarus, being aquatic creatures, knew exactly how to deal with firing such weapons from underwater.

  “Makes sense,” Telisa said. “They set up some defenses at the coast where their forces emerge. It’s the closest point from the ocean to the industrial complex.”

  The tactical lit up elsewhere.

  “Enemy missile launch!” Magnus said.

  Caden had only a second to consider what, if anything, his disk squadron could do about the new missiles, when the Space Force fleet above the atmosphere responded. This time, the Terrans and Celarans had total orbital superiority. A vast amount of energy poured out of the heavens down upon the rising Quarus weapons. Caden scanned the readouts—the Terran battleships had a staggering number of joules at their disposal.

  Caden put the handful of disk machines he controlled on an evasive course. He had to recalculate time to the targeted assault zone—it would now be harder to get there on time. The good news was that the squadron had lost only about 10% of their force.

  As they left the coast behind, Caden considered the trade-offs of getting fewer machines to the zone sooner versus staying on their erratic courses and arriving after the spinners hit the water. He selected an evasion algorithm that would smooth out the farther they got from the coast. He chose constants that would get the machines there just on time.

  Everyone shut up as the last minute ticked away. Caden’s squadron zeroed in on the drop zone, the rocks fell ever nearer their target, and the Space Force corvettes moved in to accompany them. Projected blast radii from the rocks appeared on the tactical. The fast-moving rocks were obvious: they had much larger danger zones. The attack had been launched in a staggered way so that the impacts would occur at nearly the same time despite the speed differences. Caden verified that his machines would be clear of the strikes.

  “Splashdown!” Telisa announced.

  Caden watched the impacts blossom on the tactical. He caught glimpses of a few visual feeds. Huge clouds rose over the ocean.

  “The special asteroids hit pretty hard, but within the spinners’ tolerances,” Magnus said.

  “Corvettes are dropping their torpedoes... entering the water in five seconds,” Sager reported.

  “Caden! Maintain your squadron above the water. Holding pattern,” Telisa ordered. Caden sent a nonverbal acknowledgement.

  Why not dive? What’s wrong?

  The tactical became a mess of activity.

  Torpedoes and ships started to go out of contact. The assault force eroded under heavy attrition. He had no idea what was isolating them or killing them off.

  They’re destroying the ships! Shouldn’t the squadron be down there?

  Many torpedoes were still circling blind, looking for targets.

  We must be laughable to them. They came from the water.

  Caden saw that almost half of the rocks had altered course since impact. It was not the spinners; there were not that many of them and Caden could see several rocks without payloads sinking off course. The enemy was pushing them aside.

  “They’ve redirected many of the rocks, including some with our payloads,” Magnus said.

  “Can we look at the changes and find what they’re trying to protect?” asked Siobhan.

  “Mostly likely only one or two of the course alterations were to protect something,” Marcant said. “The rest are probably misdirection.”

  “It won’t matter,” Telisa reassured them. “When our asteroid fragments get deep enough, the spinners can move in on any targets.”

  Gravity spinners have strange effects around water. This should be spectacular.

  Caden had seen entertainment shows that used gravity spinners in bodies of water, though the spinners had been near the surface for those displays. A spinner could cause vast walls of whitewater to fly upward into the sky like a huge reverse waterfall.

  He tried to envision the confusion. Could the violent water currents bring the ship or a factory to the surface? It would be more than just currents from the spinner eddies, though. If the spinner could get close enough, it could cancel out the target’s weight. Without the pull of gravity to match the pressure around an object in equilibrium, it would be squirted upward like a bubble in deep water.

  More Space Force ships started a sharply declining course, bringing them down toward the ocean for a second wave. Telisa kept glancing over at Siobhan. He wanted Telisa to t
ell him to attack with the second wave of Space Force ships coming into position. At least the disk machines were not taking hits at the moment. He assumed the ships and their torpedoes must be the enemy’s current priority. He watched the tactical and waited.

  The next group of ships would be going into the water in seconds. Torpedoes fell from the sky, headed for the blue-green ocean.

  “The spinners still have no targets,” Siobhan said urgently.

  Telisa finally looked at Caden. “Now, Caden! Launch those torpedoes and get your disks in there. Mix it up. Make it noisy and look for targets!”

  The squadron interface came to the fore in Caden’s mind. He saw his main disk machine, master to a hierarchy of slaved and sub-slaved disk machines. He prepared a fire order, let it percolate through the entire squadron, then ordered the launch. The disk machines’ video feeds lurched as they dived toward the water. Another feed showed that the entire squadron moved as one. The torpedoes separated and sliced into the water. The disk machines recovered and skimmed the top of the ocean, slowing. Then they slipped under the waves after the torpedoes.

  Caden’s first disk machine went deeper in a long spiral course. He deactivated the hierarchy so that the squadron could scatter. The ocean was alive with targets. He assumed many of them must be diversions. He brought his own submerged disk robot slightly closer to one of the payload bearing space rocks as it descended toward the ocean floor far below, analyzed its course, then sent the disk angling away.

  Enemy action eroded the squadron’s torpedoes. The few reports than made it back hinted at energy weapon deaths. Over half of his torpedoes were already gone.

  Caden monitored the feeds from the disk machines. He had the entire squadron looking for signature matches of the Quarus seed ship. Enemy jamming was cutting out a lot of the transmissions. This time, the Terran ships were fighting back, trying to establish connections across multiple, moving frequencies and throwing out noise of their own.

  Still, we’re in the water... their home turf... can we really improve communications?

  A new disturbance came up in Caden’s PV. Low frequency vibrations in the ocean below them. He supposed it might be fragments of iron from their rocks hitting the ocean floor.