“Try to get them to hold back the reserve warships,” said Cordez, “and can you get someone onto calling up a fleet of shuttles to fill the reserve warships with your best people? I’ll arrange escorts for the shuttles from this end.”
ParapSanni grunted his agreement, then cut the communication. Orlock set the plasma cannons to fire automatically, and Sarsanni begged, ordered about, and over-ruled protesting officials to get hold of the shuttles that would help evacuate Uruk and fill the warships.
In his heart ParapSanni was already dreading the decisions someone would have to make – who would stay and who would go in the evacuation. He was considering this when he was connected to the inner chamber of the Great Hall, where the Eight resided.
SergoParBrahmad, First among the Eight, gave him permission to address the assembly. ParapSanni delivered Cordez’ ideas, dressing them up as his own. Anything Human would only be considered interference in Sumerian affairs.
When he was finished there was a small amount of desk tapping – signifying approval – but ParapSanni knew this was at most a show of loyalty to him personally. How they would vote was another matter.
Then the Reform Party leader was told to stand by while the assembly considered his suggestions. In the background he could hear some of the rhetoric with which the Sumerian High Council were bolstering their courage.
One memorable phrase – it is better to die as free Sumerians than to be slaves to these detested invaders – confirmed for ParapSanni the worst. The assembly could not see that one battle was not a war, that while there was life there was hope.
ParapSanni formed the Sumerian equivalent of a smile. He was asking himself where he was getting these newfangled notions from. He had been thinking in Human frames of reference for too long. Then again, maybe these were changes to their thinking that the Sumerians desperately needed to make.
ParapSanni didn’t wait to hear any more, and cut the call. SarSanni was already urging him toward a ground transport that contained the engineers who had worked the plasma cannons.
Behind them a wave of ground ships was tearing apart an industrial area on the horizon, and the city next to them would be next. As they left the ground floor of the building a phalanx of black, needle-nosed ground ships roared overhead and began a bombing run.
The two Par’Sanni ran toward the waiting ground transport in a succession of bounding leaps, powered by an adrenaline overload many times what was possible for a Human system.
CHAPTER 26
________________
ParapSanni reconnected the call to the High Council from the transport. The news was not good. The Eight were of a mind to sell Uruk as dearly as possible, and were ready to send the reserve force, waiting on the dark side of the planet, into the front line to bolster resistance.
The transport fled for the city’s airport, and ParapSanni set up the sub-space radio again, so he could speak to the South Am headquarters. Cordez was incensed when he heard what the Eight were planning.
“Don’t they know they’re just throwing away lives?” he said in frustration.
“There’s nothing more I can do,” said ParapSanni apologetically.
“I know, I know,” said Cordez resignedly. “But make sure you get yourselves and your people out of there. Load as much of your equipment and as many Sumerians as you can trust, into shuttles. I’ll see to it the Javelins pick you up on the night side of Uruk.”
ParapSanni acknowledged, and ended the transmission. SarSanni asked him what Cordez had said.
“The Human stated the truth, yes?” said SarSanni quietly. “It is immoral to throw away lives when no possible gain can come of it.”
There was silence on the ground transport as the others thought about his words.
“What if there was a way to save the lives of the crews, but keep the warships fighting,” said Orlock, talking about the reserve warships that were about to be thrown at the Invardii war machine. “Could we automate the ships? And if we did that, how would we offload the crews?”
The engineers on the transport started to become animated, ideas flowing one after the other as problems were identified, and then overcome.
“But this is hypothetical,” argued ParapSanni. “The Eight will do what they want, and we don’t have a say in the matter!”
“There may yet be an opportunity,” said SarSanni. “In all great things there is always a moment that favours the brave. It is better to plan for that moment than sit down and give way to an enemy.”
This was too much new thinking for ParapSanni, but he held his peace. It was good to see the engineers focused on something positive again, and what harm could a little problem-solving exercise do.
The transport raced across the countryside under a growing pall of smoke and dust as the ground ships destroyed Sumerian civilisation. Above them the immense battle for control of the skies was drawing to a close.
The best efforts of the allied forces had barely managed to reduce the number of Reaper ships by a tenth. The Earth Tetrarchs had withdrawn with heavy losses in the early stages of the engagement, and the Sumerian warships were now reduced by half.
The Javelins were running out of the fractal slugs that had brought them a scattering of initial successes, and both Sumerian motherships had been destroyed. The plasma cannons had at least stalled the ground ship invasion of the surface for a while, but they, too, had now been overcome.
Once the Eight had managed to get a consensus from the assembly in the Great Hall, they would order the last of their forces, the reserve Barauk on the night side of Uruk, to defend the planet to the last warship.
Finch was waiting on the command from Cordez to withdraw the Prometheus forces. The Javelins were supporting the Sumerian warships where they could, but it was a losing battle.
SarSanni listened as OrLock explained how the remaining Sumerian warships could be automated. Several of the engineers were trying to write a program to do this as the land transport reached the city’s airport, but had to put it aside to contend with other matters.
ParapSanni led them past queues of Sumerians waiting to be transported to other cities. Sarsanni wondered what these would-be travellers hoped to achieve, possibly just to reach homes and loved ones so they might die together.
The Reform Party took over two of the intercity shuttles, and they were soon at cruising altitude. That was when the pilot relayed a news headline to his passengers. ParapSanni and SarSanni listened in stunned silence as the news broke that the Great Hall of the Sumerian government had been levelled by ground ships. The Eight, and most of the Sumerian government, were now presumed dead.
SarSanni was the first to grasp the implications of the message. He turned to the Reform Party leader.
“You must take charge of the defence of Uruk! You are the most senior government official left, and you have to take over political leadership before someone else does.
“Don’t you see, this is the chance we’ve been waiting for! Let Orlock automate the warships fighting on the front line, and then use the reserve warships to evacuate Uruk. We have to do this!”
ParapSanni took a moment to consider Sarsanni’s words. Orlock understood the urgency of the situation, and quickly organised his engineers toward finishing a program for the warships that would work.
At last ParapSanni gave his assent. He walked forward to the piloting compartment of the shuttle, a new stiffness in his bearing, and ordered on open line to the Sumerian newsweb service. Once his identity had been verified, he was able to tell the Sumerian people what the situation was, and what he intended to do.
When he came back from the piloting compartment, the others lowered themselves to the floor, and made the signs of obeisance to a new lord. For however long it lasted, ParapSanni was now the supreme authority within the Sumerian Empire.
Cordez took a sub-space call from ParapSanni two minutes later, and grasped the implications of the plan immediately. If it worked, the Sumerians would continue as a
fighting force, and so would the alliance with Earth. From a new beginning, on a one of their planets, the Sumerian government would build more warships, and maintain the allegiance of its remaining colonies.
As ParapSanni finished his call to Cordez, an excited Orlock was able to tell him that it was possible to automate the Sumerian warships. Not very effectively, and not for long, but enough to push the Invardii fleet back for a while.
SarSanni had used the time to contact the reserve Barauk. When the commander had accepted the new chain of command, the warships were given their new orders. It was imperative the warships still fighting on the sunlit side of the planet were automated as quickly as possible, and the crews taken off.
OrLock uploaded the directions for the automation process to the reserve Barauk, and it swept toward the front line to implement the new strategy.
Working in rotation, each reserve wing allied itself with warships pulled temporarily from the conflict over the planet, taking off the crews and automating the Sumerian warships. It was a hard thing to do under full combat conditions, and the already reduced Sumerian forces fell back slowly toward the dark side of the planet during the process.
The Javelins supported the warships as much as they could, but they had been ordered to conserve their remaining fractal slugs. The energy beams they could employ had little effect on the coronal skins of the fiery orange ships.
The Invardii fleet had full control of the sunward-facing side of Uruk by the time the reserve Barauk had finished its work. The ground ships had complete freedom on the surface of the planet and were systematically destroying the Sumerian cities. With the first part of ParapSanni’s plan completed, the allied forces swept back to an ever-tightening defensive ring above the night side of Uruk.
On the ground, ParapSanni was overseeing what looked like complete pandemonium, as the evacuation of Uruk began. Those who would be of the most use in the continuing Sumerian resistance had the highest priority. Resources and equipment would be left behind. They were things that could be replaced from other Sumerian planets.
The choice for those who were told to remain on Uriuk was bleak. Most chose to escape to the wildest parts of the planet, and exist as best they could until Sumerian forces hopefully lifted them off at some time in the future.
Shuttles rose into the skies from every city on the night side, and craft of every type ferried Sumerians in from the rest of the planet, evading the ground ships where they could. Warships of the reserve Barauk pulled back from the defensive ring, a few at a time, to be loaded with as many Sumerians as possible.
The refugees were put into an inert medical state that would last until they reached another Sumerian world, and the warship holds were packed with the inert forms. But it was still only a fraction of the millions of Sumerians on Uruk.
Then the Reaper ships came round the curve of the planet to test the new alliance front line above the dark side of the planet. Cordez watched the approach of the vast, bright orange ships on the sub-space feeds from the Javelins. A thin line of the new, automated warships moved out to intercept the Invardii threat, weaving as they tried to pick the best lines of attack.
“That’s it,” breathed Cordez, “just a few of the automated ships to start with. Let the Invardii know what will happen if they want to make a fight out of the evacuation.”
He shook both fists in front of him, like a prizefighter.
“Buy us time!” he prayed.
The automated warships began to press home their attack, loosing missiles and trying to find weaknesses in the Reaper ship hulls with energy beams. But this was just a subterfuge.
One, then two, of the warships took hits from the Invardii coronal fire, and were destroyed when they could no longer manoeuvre out of the way of the deadly arcs.
Then the automated warships accelerated, twisting around the much larger Invardii ships while the fuses on their remaining missiles counted down, and the energy levels in the containment chambers soared toward overload. At the last moment, when they should have veered away from the Reaper ships, they plunged into them, diving deep into their plasma shields.
There they detonated, breaking through the surface of the giant ships of fire and blowing apart the hubs and spars at the centre. Dozens of Reaper ships were reduced to circles of expanding debris, the blasts sweeping over the ships nearby and throwing the Reaper ship advance into confusion.
“Yes!” said, Cordez chopping at the air in Brazilian exuberance. “If they want to stop us evacuating Uruk,” he muttered, “it’s going to cost them. Let’s see how they like that!”
As he watched, the evacuation intensified, shuttles streaming up to low orbit in ever-greater numbers, and the warships taking on refugees as fast as they could. For now, uncertain, the Reaper ships hung back.
Cordez opened a line to Finch at Prometheus.
“What do you think?” he queried.
Finch knew what his boss was talking about. They had discussed the possibility earlier.
“I’ll get the Javelins to make as much space as they can for refugees,” said Finch, and called up Cagill, the Javelin commander.
“It will be more symbolic than anything,” he explained to the Air Marshall. Cagill understood. The Javelins were built to run on a small crew and were lean, efficient machines with little free space. The Sumerian warships were built for long tours of duty by their large and very sociable crews, and had capacious holds and extensive living quarters.
And so it was that the Human race became involved in the most important evacuation of what came to be known by historians as the Second Phase of the Caerbrindii Wars. The reorganisation of the Sumerians into an effective resistance force had yet to begin in earnest, but the evacuation of Uruk was an important first step.
As the last of the shuttles fell away beneath them, and the alliance forces prepared to leave the Sumerian home planet to its fate, Cordez was hoping fervently that the evacuation forces would make a successful retreat from the planet. The outcome had been a lot more positive than he had dared to hope. The way things had slotted together seemed to be more than a coincidence.
I wonder if there is a force for good that helps a just cause, wondered Cordez aloud. But he would leave that to the philosophers – he had a resistance to run!
CHAPTER 27
________________
ParapSanni had managed to contact some of the Reform Party leaders among the refugees, and was now in urgent discussion with them. He was trying to decide where a new base for the government should be, somewhere on one of the Sumerian colony planets.
But there would be no new capital if the refugees didn’t make it there, and the evacuation of Uruk was reaching a critical stage.
The Reaper ships were circling the defensive line of Sumerian warships and Prometheus Javelins. They weren’t prepared to press home the engagement after the Sumerian remotes had destroyed dozens of their ships, but they were looking for ways they could disrupt the evacuation.
Cagill had ordered the Javelins to the outside of the defensive line. He knew there would be one last, fierce firefight when the allied forces tried to leave Uruk, and that was why he had ordered his forces to hold back some of their fractal slugs.
Then the word came in that all of the Javelins were now fully loaded with refugees, and the last of the shuttles was retreating back into the atmosphere. Cagill didn’t know what was going through the minds of the Sumerians left behind, but he figured it was very hard for them right now.
He hoped there would be a rescue mission later, but his job was to evacuate as many of the allied ships as possible. Once they had safely entered star drive, his job would be done.
Cagill conferred briefly with ParapSanni, and the Sumerian warships carrying refugees were the first to move to a safe distance from the planet, where they could initiate star drive. The Javelins and remote-controlled Sumerian warships formed a protective shield. The Reaper ships began to press forward, seeing their prey about to escape them, and
Cagill ordered the Javelins to attack.
A concentrated fire of fractal slugs cut holes in the enemy lines, but the Reaper ships kept coming. The Javelins stood their ground, but once they had used up the last of their ammunition they had no choice but to fall back, and let the automated warships run at the Reaper ships.
Knowing what was coming this time round, the enemy ships generated an over-locking web of firepower around themselves, and many of the remotes were destroyed by the surging arcs of plasma. But some found their way through, and dozens of the Reaper ships disappeared in vast explosions, the debris falling into the atmosphere above Uruk.
Cagill looked at the screens of his command Javelin. Behind him more than half the alliance force was now clear of the planet, and far enough away to initiate star drive. He took a deep breath. They were doing it. They were pulling off a massive evacuation under the nose of the armada.
“Invardii command ship!” said his navigation officer sharply, and Cagill’s heart sank.
The allied forces didn’t have an answer to the giant Invardii command ships. Even the Druanii shields didn’t seem to be that effective against them. This time, though, there was no choice. Someone had to buy time for the rest of the evacuation force to escape.
Rallying the rest of his squadron to follow him, Cagill attacked the Invardii command ship, prepared to do whatever was necessary to buy the time the refugees needed.
A flurry of broadsides raked the command ship, but they had no noticeable effect. Several of the thick tails of fire lashed out from the command ship, and one of the Javelins was transformed in a bright flash into an expanding ring of debris.
Racing around the command ship fire as best he could, the Javelins tried to get inside its defences, hoping that a closer broadside might be more effective.
There was a blinding flash of white, and Cagill’s Javelin was adrift in space, one side cut completely away. Cagill noticed, almost as if he was dreaming, that part of his command deck was missing.
Invardii Series Boxset Page 34