Antares Crucible

by Warwick Gibson

  ANTARES CRUCIBLE

  Sixth Book in the INVARDII series.

  Warwick Gibson.

  © 2019 Warwick Gibson.

  All Rights Reserved.

  DISCLAIMER.

  This novel is a work of fiction. It does not draw from actual events. The characters are entirely fictitious, and do not bear any resemblance to persons living or dead.

  ALSO by WARWICK GIBSON

  THE UNSOUND PRINCE (Sword and sorcery fantasy)

  ROUGH JUSTICE (Small town Chief of Police)

  ENEMY WITHIN (SAS action with some sci-fi content)

  The INVARDII Series

  CHAOS and RETREAT

  ANCESTRAL HOME

  MEDIEVAL PLANET

  BOXED SET: BOOKS 1 -3

  FEDIC VITS

  RISE OF THE VALKRETHI

  ANTARES CRUCIBLE

  BOXED SET: BOOKS 4 - 6

  Table of Contents

  PROLOGUE

  PART ONE: CONTROL OF THE SKIES

  CHAPTER 1 CHAPTER 2 CHAPTER 3

  HISTORIAN’S REPORT

  PART TWO: WAR ON THE GROUND

  CHAPTER 4 CHAPTER 5 CHAPTER 6

  PART THREE: REBUILDING A PLANET

  CHAPTER 7 CHAPTER 8 CHAPTER 9

  PART FOUR: FINDING ANTARES

  CHAPTER 10 CHAPTER 11 CHAPTER 12

  HISTORIAN’S REPORT

  PART FOUR: THE INVARDII ALLY

  CHAPTER 13 CHAPTER 14 CHAPTER 15

  PART FIVE: ORION AND DRUANII

  CHAPTER 16 CHAPTER 17 CHAPTER 18

  HISTORIAN’S REPORT

  PART SIX: MORE VALKRETHI

  CHAPTER 19 CHAPTER 20 CHAPTER 21

  PART SEVEN: THE DRUANII BASE

  CHAPTER 22 CHAPTER 23 CHAPTER 24

  PART SEVEN: COUNTING DOWN

  CHAPTER 25 CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27 CHAPTER 28

  HISTORIAN’S REPORT

  PART EIGHT: THE BATTLE FOR ANTARES

  CHAPTER 29 CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31 CHAPTER 32

  HISTORIAN’S REPORT

  CHAPTER 33 CHAPTER 34

  PROLOGUE

  ________________

  My name is Herodotus. I am an historian.

  I have been recording the terrible events of the Invardii wars as they played out over the last four years. I have made these records in case our civilization does not survive, and future races might find them among the rubble. They were a duty placed upon me by our leaders in this troubled time, Regents Cordez and Ming, of the South Am and Asian trading blocks.

  Like many others, I did not expect the Human race to last as long as this. That we have survived, and even beaten back the invaders in places, was not in my wildest dreams.

  Before I record the last chapter of this great conflict, I have one more historical account to tell. It is the story of the invasion of Earth. How our civilization was destroyed by a thousand-strong enemy armada, and then reborn. This is the greatest story of Human courage and determination ever told!

  I have a matter of weeks left to record this extraordinary narrative. Then a life pod especially designed for my crippled state will be loaded onto one of the Javelins. I will be there when the greatest fleet of star ships ever assembled embarks on our civilization’s most perilous task. We are to track the Invardii to their city lair, and do our best to destroy them.

  The rest of the Alliance will be with us. Sumerian warships and giant motherships will be present, and strange craft from sun systems the reclusive Druanii have kept as protectorates. The people of Hud pilot many of our Javelins now, and the Mersa and K’Sarth work tirelessly behind the scenes to support the war effort.

  In the first volume of these historical works, I said it was my fondest wish that I would live long enough to tell you this last tale as the Alliance finally begins to fight back. That wish has been granted.

  Whether I will survive the final conflict, with a more powerful and more numerous foe than the Human race has ever encountered, remains to be seen. It is, perhaps, a lot to expect two miracles in one lifetime.

  PART ONE: CONTROL OF THE SKIES

  CHAPTER 1

  ________________

  There were things worse than looking straight at something immensely powerful that was trying to kill you. Worse than something closing on you fast, very fast, ready to strike you down.

  There were other things. Knowing something immensely powerful was coming and not yet seeing it, your insides stewing with fear and your outsides coated with sweat. That was worse.

  Earth had been preparing for the invasion for months. Cordez could only hope the planet-wide frenzy had been enough. Of course it wasn’t. It couldn’t be. But somehow he had to make these last-minute preparations work. Somehow, he had to defend his planet.

  The inhabitants of the Prometheus research and development base got a first-hand look at the vast Invardii armada as it passed by Neptune, still well out in the Solar System. The Javelin destroyers had left Prometheus to protect Earth some time before, and the huge production facility had been reconfigured to look like a simple mining camp. It now had a primitive energy signature to match.

  As the Prometheus staff watched the screens overhead, long-range scanners closed in on the distant scattering of orange stars as it passed them by on the way to Earth.

  Reaper ships in groups of five and six filled the main screen, interspersed with an occasional single ship traveling to and fro between them, and all spread out over immense distances in space. There was no doubting what Prometheus was looking at. The images were identical to ones of the Invardii fleet on its way to Uruk, before the invaders destroyed the Sumerian civilization on their home planet.

  A similar armada had now entered the Solar System, and it was heading for Earth. A dozen or more of the giant Invardii flagships were traveling in the middle of the vast assemblage of ships. As the armada passed by Neptune, it became clear it was taking no notice of Prometheus.

  Those remaining at the base, Human and Mersa alike, breathed a collective sigh of relief. Cargo ships hidden in the underground hangers for an emergency exit might not be needed.

  Cordez watched the relayed feed from his wartime office. It was an operations room equipped with sub-space communications in the South Am military headquarters, a headquarters buried deep within the foothills of the Andes. Then Cordez switched to a feed from one of the Mars long-range scanners.

  Ahead of the armada, a thin line of Javelins spread out along the orbit of Mars. The red planet was visible as a ruddy ball to their left as it continued on its way around the Sun. Cordez did the sums. He had 30 squadrons of Prometheus Javelins at his disposal, and joint command of EarthGov’s eight remaining squadrons, rebuilt to Javelin specifications. He had 380 ships lined up against 980, which gave the Invardii a numerical advantage around 2.5 to one.

  But numbers were only one part of the equation. Most of his pilots were from Earth, and they would fight to the death for their homeland. The remaining ten squadrons were piloted by the people of Hud, with their extraordinary reflexes.

  The armada closed on the line of silently waiting ships, exploratory arcs of coronal fire erupting from the first of the Reaper ships. The Javelins moved forward to meet them, forming up into combat groups. Adrenaline surged as the pilots prepared to pit reaction times and experience against an enemy they had met before. The Reaper ships closed into the tetrahedral groups of four that allowed them to overlap their arcs of fire to best effect.

  The Hud pilots were the first to engage. Kanuk and Leana led squadrons out into the open spaces above the endless sea of enemy ships, and turned their Javelins on their backs as they dived through it. They chose their paths carefully, and raked individual Reaper ships with salvos of self-guiding slugs. Both
of them already had a number of kills against the Reaper ships from this low-tech but deadly form of attack.

  The super-dense projectiles slammed home against the enemy hulls, and the plasma shields on the Invardii ships flared a deep red as the slugs were absorbed, and destroyed. Cordez sat up in alarm. That had never happened before.

  Kanuk came round again, his speed increasing as lightning-fast reflexes began to kick in. He easily evaded the intense coronal arcs seeking to knock him out of the fight. He raked one of the Reaper ships from nose to ornate bladed tail again, two of his squadron’s Javelins following him and raking the underside of the Reaper ship’s hull.

  The plasma shields of the ship flared under the combined attack, turning the super-dense slugs to a series of red stains against the hull. The shields faded to a dull yellow, exhausted under the combined attack, but as another Javelin raced in, seeking to take advantage of the weakness, its shields flared again. Then the shields destroyed the new salvo of slugs as easily as the last.

  Cordez was dismayed as he realized what was happening. The Invardii had adapted to the earlier Javelin successes against them. Their plasma shields were now able to destroy the fractal slugs before they penetrated the hull and did any damage. It was a disaster. It took out the only real weapon the Earth forces had against the armada.

  Cordez tried desperately to find a solution. He had expected the Invardii to improvise like this at some stage. The war had become a test of which side could change what they were doing the fastest. The timing of the new development in the plasma shields was terrible. It had come when the Solar System lay open to the invaders, and the Alliance had no time to prepare a new defense.

  The Regent struggled to get his emotions under control. There was still a battle to be fought, and the Alliance forces would be looking to him for direction. The Javelin pilots would have seen what just happened, as would everyone throughout the planets of the Alliance as they watched the live feeds from long-range scanners. He needed to act decisively, and he needed to act now!

  “Air Marshall Cagill,” he snapped, impatient to get the feeling of hopelessness out of his system, “return one of the Mark Ten squadrons of Javelins to Prometheus. Break off the attack and reform at secondary positions around Earth. Leave the Hud squadrons though, tell them to stand off for the moment.”

  “Understood. Cagill out,” came a crisp reply over the comms link. The Air Marshall was out there with the forces he was commanding, and Cordez admired him for that. It was only his ‘irreplaceable’ position as effectively leader of the Alliance that kept Cordez out of the fighting.

  He motioned one of his aides over. “Repeat the order to reform around Earth to EarthGov Chief of Staff McGorant for the Earth warships,” he said, “and apologize for my absence. Give my code authorization.”

  EarthGov had appointed McGorant to the position because of his close association with both the political system and the Board of Regents, and Cordez had thought the appointment a fair one. The aide snapped a salute and hurried off.

  Cordez opened an instantaneous sub-space link to Prometheus, and told Finch that the timeline for the new, and untested, missiles the base was working on had just been sped up. They were wanted in less than 24 hours.

  The Prometheus head met some stiff resistance to the unexpected request when he passed the message on. Engineering head Carlos Paula told him it was impossible, that the guidance systems were untested and might backfire on the Javelins.

  Finch told him the pilots on the front line were prepared to take the chance, and so should he. Carlos was at a loss what to say after that. Eventually he said he would do his best to meet the deadline.

  Cordez called another aide over.

  “Where in all the goddamn hells I can think of, and that’s a lot, are the Sumerian warships?” he demanded.

  “Less than an hour away,” replied the aide. “Shall I contact them for a more exact ETA?”

  Cordez shook his head. Then he waved the aide away, and got back to Cagill, who was heading the Javelin squadrons.

  “The Reaper ship defenses looked overloaded under multiple salvos,” he said. “If the Hud teams can land enough salvos at exactly the same time, some of them might get through. What do you think?”

  Cagill had been thinking the same thing. Seconds later the Hud squadrons had new orders, and returned to the attack. The armada was already well past the line of Mars’ orbit.

  The first Reaper ship the Javelins targeted en mass turned a pale yellow as a dozen salvos landed at the same time. The following attack, arriving seconds later, sped through the weakly shielded hull and dispersed inside the enemy ship. That should have been enough to destroy the internal hubs, but nothing happened.

  The cheers that were just beginning on board the attacking squadrons tailed off as the plasma shields came up to a new brightness, and the Reaper ship continued on its way.

  “We believe they’ve also shielded the hubs against the super-dense slugs,” reported Finch a little later, as he made contact from Prometheus. Cordez swore abruptly, and struggled once again to bring his emotions under control. He still thought the idea might work though, and Cagill agreed.

  “Whole squadron precision,” suggested Cagill. “Three salvos each, first set arriving simultaneously, a two second gap, then the last two bursts arriving as close as possible behind each other.”

  Cagill acknowledged.

  The Hud squadrons were now attacking in rolling waves, each wave coming up to the extraordinary peak reflex and thinking speed of its pilots in turn, while the other two waves rested. It was an unequal battle as three Hud squadrons at a time chewed away at the head of an armada nearly a thousand ships strong.

  The first Alliance success followed a short time later, and a Reaper ship ignited in a soundless flash of light. The fog of molten droplets cooled rapidly in space, and all trace of the enemy ship was gone.

  A cheer rang through the South Am military headquarters, and Cordez felt a moment’s grim satisfaction. Still, he knew the odds for the Javelins were very low. The Reaper ships had adapted to that method of attack. He found his fears realized as hundreds of salvos were expended before the next Alliance success.

  The third victory came at a heavy price. The detonation of the enemy ship sent chunks of debris flying out from the blast, and one of them disabled a Javelin coming around for another pass. An arc of fire from the nearest Reaper ship destroyed the ship moments later.

  Cordez called the Hud Javelins away from the fight, and sent them to top up their armaments at one of the space stations floating above Mars. In the first encounter between the two forces the Alliance had made little impact. Cordez was beside himself with frustration – they had to do better than this!

  He reviewed the situation. The Invardii fleet would soon arrive at Earth, and the Hud Javelins needed to be re-armed and ready to engage as soon as possible. The Sumerians had finally entered the Solar System, but they were still some way from Earth, and the squadron at Prometheus had not yet been loaded with Carlos Paula’s little shield-busting prototypes.

  He rubbed his eyes. It was going to be a long, long day. He looked back at the screens as the armada approached Earth. There were so many of them! Then an aide brought him the welcome news that the Sumerian forces were now passing the orbit of Mars.

  CHAPTER 2

  ________________

  EarthGov had followed through with its early plan for huge military space stations as part of their defenses. Cordez had objected, knowing they would be nothing but cannon fodder for the Invardii ships. Now the space stations engaged the armada as it approached Earth orbit. Long trails of missiles sped away from them, rapidly closing the distance to the armada.

  Somewhere above the night side of Earth, hundreds of high-megaton warheads exploded among the Invardii fleet, making a strange fireworks display. It looked almost pretty on the long-range visuals. Cordez could imagine children clapping at the sight, in the care of grim-faced adults who had more of a
n understanding of what was going on.

  He marveled at the Invardii technology anew. How did their shields absorb such a prodigious outpouring of energy, while the ships escaped unharmed? Yet they had their weaknesses too, and often seemed in their arrogance to overlook simpler technology and more practical approaches that were just as effective. They had little understanding of strategy, preferring to let their superior firepower do the work for them.

  The brightness of the detonations diminished, and Cordez could look at the aftermath. One Reaper ship drifted away below the main body of the armada. It turned end over end, and would in time be drawn into Earth’s gravity field to be burned up in the atmosphere. It had probably been a malfunction in its shield, decided Cordez. Among so many ships one or two must strike operational problems from time to time. Still, it was one more enemy ship down.

  The Invardii flagships sent dozens of glittering projectiles arcing away toward the space stations in reply. They looked like handfuls of fire flung through the darkness of space, and Cordez remembered the fireballs Fedic had reported from Uruk that had downed his ship, and he knew the space stations were doomed.

  He wondered momentarily how Fedic was getting on. His man on the ground in Uruk had reported in on the sub-space link two days ago, but he had asked that a rescue party not be sent for him. The Invardii forces were now concentrated in the Solar System, and it would have been easy to rescue Fedic, but Cordez didn’t have a ship to spare.

  Fedic would find a way out of his predicament, as always, he mused. Then he noted on a side screen that the Sumerian ships were, at last, approaching Earth.

  He looked back to the main screen, and watched the space stations as they took hit after hit from the glittering fireballs. The stations gently crumpled as their hulls were chewed apart. Power plants inside began to brew up, and tear them apart in sudden explosions. It was as Cordez had predicted, that they would have little effect on the outcome of the battle for Earth.