Antares Crucible

by Warwick Gibson

  The stations were largely automated, so the loss of life was not great. Still, every death was always a death Cordez felt he might have been able to prevent, and one that he would berate himself for later.

  The Sumerian forces were too late to make a difference to the destruction of the space stations, but they were an impressive sight as they swept toward the armada. Each cooling tower was a hard, bright beacon outlining the ship in front of it.

  The Sumerian motherships were gargantuan, almost on a par with the Invardii flagships. The lower halves of each prodigious sphere were packed with cooling towers, lit up like skyscrapers at night. They were dinosaurs of course, still sporting cooling towers that the Javelins had put to more efficient use at the beginning of this war, but they were very dangerous dinosaurs.

  Each of the 21 motherships was defended by a wing of Sumerian warships, making a fleet of almost 200 ships, but it wasn’t all of the Sumerian force. Three wings of eight warships had left the main body to enter into orbit around Mars at Cordez’ request.

  Cordez contacted ParapSanni, leader of the Sumerian ParSanni Revolutionary Reform Party, on a one of the instantaneous sub-space connections, and thanked him once again for this assistance in Earth’s darkest hour. The Sumerians had been part of Cordez’ planning from the beginning, but it still warmed his heart to see they had arrived. ParapSanni asked if there were any last-minute instructions, but Cordez simply bade the Sumerians enter the conflict wherever they saw fit.

  The Invardii forces moved closer to Earth, and the last line of defense around the planet moved forward to meet them. The re-armed squadrons in Mars orbit made the jump to Earth at the same time. They were visible as pale streaks across the heavens as they hurried to join the defensive line.

  The Alliance force fell on the Invardii armada, orderly formations breaking apart in hundreds of individual engagements. The sky above Earth was full of energy beams, and with the crisp lines of super-dense slugs in flight. Then the eruption and dissipation of coronal arcs from the Reaper ships responded just as fiercely. The Javelin’s impenetrable shields, gifted them by the elusive Druanii, and the Reaper ship’s plasma-shielded hulls, denied either side any real success.

  But the armada had numbers on its side, and Cordez knew the Alliance could not win in a contest of strength. While the battle for control of the space above Earth raged backward and forward, some of the Reaper ships dropped into a lower orbit, and began to unload the sleek needle-nosed Invardii groundships.

  Cordez saw a group of Reaper ships move into position over South America. This was his home turf, the foundation of the South Am trading block, and he sent an authorization code to move the whole continent to battle stations. His people knew the battle plan, and he trusted them to make the Invardii pay dearly as the groundships descended through the atmosphere.

  Almost at once plasma cannon, buried deep in bunkers along the foothills of the Andes, responded by pumping out streaks of super-heated, primordial matter. The Sumerian solution to the problem of firing an energy weapon through a dense atmosphere on Uruk had been a sensible one. Prometheus had then taken the idea and adapted it. The cannons were firing at maximum range as the first groundships descended, but the Sumerians had taken out groundships over Uruk at the same range.

  First one, then several of the bunkers, reported kills. Cordez felt a moment’s grim satisfaction. Then a call came from Prometheus, and it was one he had been dreading.

  “Reaper ship activity is being reported near Mars,” said Finch. “A number of their ships are closing on Deimos, the second moon.”

  “Understood,” said Cordez. “Has Carlos finished loading his prototype missiles yet?”

  “Hold for a moment,” said Finch, and the connection went silent until he came back.

  “The missiles are loaded, and the techs are fitting firing systems to the Javelins as we speak,” he continued. “They should be space-bound in a few minutes.”

  “Tell them Deimos is their first target point,” said Cordez, “and details will follow once they’re underway.”

  “Acknowledged,” said Finch, and the connection closed.

  Cordez thought back to the meeting at Prometheus when Carlos had first unveiled the missiles. He had, oddly, seemed to be ashamed of them.

  “I’m not sure how they work,” he had said fretfully. “I mean they do work, so I should be excited about the breakthrough, but using something you don’t fully understand can come back to bite you.”

  Finch had been next to Cordez at the table, and he had nodded understandingly. It was his job to look after his research people.

  The heads of department had been clustered around one end of the boardroom table, while Carlos showed them the results of the tests of his new prototype. A mock up of a Reaper ship hull glowed with flickering orange fire, and then the bright star of a rapidly approaching missile hit it squarely amidships.

  The hull stuttered, died, and then flared into life again as the plasma generators compensated for the failure. Finch made a chopping motion with his hand and Carlos turned the recording of the demonstration off.

  “The missiles will only give us a few moments when the Reaper ship shields are down,” said the little Mersa at Carlos’ side excitedly, “but we think the missiles will disable the shields around the hubs inside the ships as well. A coordinated attack should allow energy weapons, especially those of the Sumerian warships, to destroy Reaper ships.”

  Her name was Fragicelli, and she was Carlos’ Mersa counterpart at Prometheus. The diminutive race of Mersa had an innovative approach to theory, and all across Prometheus teams like this thought up extravagant new ideas, and then tried to make them a reality. It had been the combined approach Cordez had been looking for, and it had led to breakthroughs that advanced the technology behind the Alliance war ships in leaps and bounds.

  The Regent dragged his mind back to the present. If there were Reaper ships around Deimos, then the Invardii were getting ready to try a trick that had worked for them before. Reaper ships had destroyed the Sumerian industrial planet of Rokar by driving the second moon of the system’s fifth planet into it.

  Cordez tried to recall the basic facts about the small moon. Deimos was around 15 km long, and a lot less through its width. It would be easy enough to deflect the moon out of its orbit around Mars and send it plunging toward Earth. The question was whether it was big enough to destroy a whole planet.

  Maybe it was, if the Reaper ships added a little extra velocity to it. The enemy ships around Deimos would be setting up devices that would deflect the moon into Earth right now, and Cordez couldn’t allow that.

  He wondered why the Invardii would want to destroy Earth when they could destroy the planet’s defenses with their military superiority, and decided it was a back-up plan. If the armada didn’t remove the threat of Earth, firing the moon into the planet would.

  CHAPTER 3

  ________________

  Cordez would have to wait until the Javelins currently at Prometheus arrived at Mars, before he could do anything about the Invardii plans for the small second moon of the planet. In the meantime he turned his attention to the desperate struggle that was being played out across the skies above Earth.

  The Sumerian motherships had now attacked the Invardii ships from the other side of the armada to the Earth defense forces, though most of the extensive armada still lay untouched between the two.

  The giant motherships were having some success against the Reaper ships. A dozen lances of the deepest blue struck out and encircled a dozen enemy ships in a death grip. The shields around the Reaper ships changed to an intense white as their systems overloaded, and then they were no more than spreading puffs of ionized gases. The motherships moved on to new targets, and Cordez silently applauded their efforts.

  The Invardii flagships moved up and out of the armada once they saw this, traveling over the heads of their own ranks. They were sending a distinct challenge to the Sumerian motherships. Cordez saw that
the enemy flagships were outnumbered two to one, and hope stirred in him that this might be a turning point in the battle for Earth.

  He wondered what the Earth forces could do to help, and sent a number of squadrons of Hud Javelins to strike at the Invardii flagships while they were on course to intercept the motherships.

  The longer the Javelins could keep the flagships busy, the more time would be available for the motherships to get in among the armada and destroy enemy ships. As Cordez watched, the motherships latched on to a dozen more of the Reaper ships, and moments later the ships puffed out of existence.

  The Javelins struck the giant flagships together, an entire squadron to each one, and the flagship shields turned a pale yellow as they burned away the super-dense slugs in 30 and 40 spreading red stains at a time. The salvos following close behind didn’t find a way through the diminished flagship shields, and moments later a Javelin burst apart as a thick beam of orange fire from a flagship lashed out at it.

  Another pass by a concentration of Javelin squadrons on the lead flagship had no effect, and thick orange beams now snaked out from the flagships in every direction. Even the extraordinary reflexes of the Hud pilots were hard pressed to stay out of their clutches.

  Cordez pulled the Javelins off the attack before more of them succumbed to the overwhelming flagship firepower. Then, as the battle raged across the night sky above Earth, the enemy flagships and the Sumerian motherships met on the edge of the constantly shifting turmoil.

  It was a meeting of giants, and Cordez could hardly bear to watch. The motherships were the best hope of the Alliance, and it was nerve-wracking to have so much riding on the encounter unfolding far above him. Within minutes a pattern of deep blue lances and coruscating orange fire had lit up the sky on the edge of the greater melee.

  Cordez compared it in his mind to a child drawing lines connecting points on a circle. There was at first a simple hexagon, and then an octagon, and finally a rose in blue and orange. The tension as the wait dragged on was unbearable.

  The flagships and motherships held their ground, beams of the most intense raw energy growing stronger as every last efficiency was applied to their generation systems, and every spare source of power was fed into each ship’s weapons grid.

  Then an orange line in the complex diagram blinked out, and a flagship turned over and drifted out of the fight. Moments later it was lit from within by a series of growing explosions.

  Cordez exulted. The motherships were holding their ground, and the improvements the Sumerians had made since the first examples of the type were making a difference. Then two of the blue lines blinked out, and two of the giant Sumerian craft tore apart, knocked out of the circle.

  Then a series of explosions ripped across the sea of interlocked lines, and for a while nothing could be seen behind a screen of flaring discharges and burning ships.

  When the situation was clear again, Cordez saw how few of the giant ships on either side remained. But the balance lay in favor of the Invardii flagships. He opened the sub-space connection to ParapSanni again, and they spoke briefly.

  When they had finished, the remaining motherships began to withdraw from the conflict. There were more flagships than motherships now, and the risk was too great. Cordez assured ParapSanni the giant ships had done enough in the defense of Earth, and they should be kept for another day.

  The unequal numbers of Javelins and much more numerous Reaper ships battled on, with both sides rarely able to penetrate the shields of the other. The Hud squadrons occasionally weakened an enemy ship enough to destroy it, but they were kept away from the thick of the conflict by the flagships. The dangerous beams of orange fire were too much for the Javelins. The battle continued to rage back and forth as ones and twos were whittled away from the numbers on either side.

  In the meantime the Hud squadron that had been armed with the new shield-busting missiles was easing away from Prometheus, and moving quickly towards Deimos. Battrod had command of the lead ship, and Bosun had talked his way onto the bridge in his position as instructor of the Hud pilots. He was looking forward to being part of the action.

  The Javelins came in over the curve of Mars and spotted Deimos. A handful of Reaper ships fussed busily about one end of it, and Battrod reviewed images of Deimos that had been taken over the last hour. The Reaper ships had been busy.

  “What is that thing?” said Bosun tersely, looking at a ring of towers that were connected by beams at one end of the small, misshapen moon.

  “The Mars miners say it’s some sort of fusion field device, as best they can tell,” said Battrod. “The towers are part power plant and part nuclear driver. They think they’re meant to eat the rock they are standing on and spit it out of the towers, as a way of driving the moon forward.”

  “Won’t it use up too much of the mass of the moon if it does that?” said Bosun, thinking of the mass that would need to be left if the moon were to have a chance of destroying Earth.

  “Not necessarily,” said Battrod. “The miners calculate less than five percent of the moon’s mass would be needed to make the trip to Earth in ten days. The Sun’s gravitational pull will help.”

  “Hells teeth, they can take as long as they like to send it on its way if they can get control of the skies over Earth,” said Bosun. Then he noticed something different about the enemy ships working on the towers.

  “Those ships look modified,” he said. “Don’t you think they look different to the normal Reaper ships?”

  “Yes, they are,” said Battrod. “Some sort of engineering ships according to the Mars miners. Nonetheless, they’re still Reaper ships, with the full Invardii plasma shields and arc weaponry.”

  Engineering ships or not, Battrod had seen enough. He coordinated his strike plans with the Sumerian warships, and a number of the Javelins prepared Carlos’ missiles for launch.

  The Alliance force swept out of the shadow of Mars, and the Reaper ships surged away from Deimos on their way to meet them. The Javelins fired a thin salvo of missiles, one for each enemy ship. The Reaper ships spread out, and aberrations in the missile paths told Battrod that they had begun jamming the missile guidance systems. Then two of the missiles struck home, and the Reaper ship shields flicked off. It was the opportunity Battrod had been waiting for.

  The Sumerian warships targeted the enemy ships with the full array of their energy weapons. The warships’ cooling towers dulled as the output of the engines surged through the weapons systems.

  The shields of the enemy ships stayed off long enough, and an instant later both ships blew apart in a disintegrating shower of debris. The plan had worked! The missiles had done the job expected of them. The Javelin and warship double hit gave the Alliance a new weapon against the Reaper ships.

  The Javelins picked off the remaining Reaper ships with limited salvos of the new missiles, wanting to conserve them as much as possible. It wasn’t long before Deimos was clear of the enemy.

  Battrod contacted Cagill to report what had happened.

  “We saw it all,” said Cagill, “relayed from the Mar’s satellites. Cordez is happier then I’ve seen him in a long time.

  “Keep your forces around Deimos for the moment,” he continued, “and destroy those towers to be doubly sure. Your orders are to stop the Invardii from using either of the two moons as weapons against Earth, or any other planetary bodies in the same way.

  “We’ll call you if we need you!” he said, and Cagill signed off.

  Bosun stood behind Battrod, and thought once again about the Alliance situation. He knew he didn’t see the whole picture, not like Cordez did, but he saw enough to know the Alliance was trying to build itself a bunker to weather the storm, a long-term defensive position.

  If the Invardii couldn’t destroy the Humans on Earth, and the Sumerians could carry on from other worlds, then the Alliance had a position it could use to regroup. And if it could survive long enough, it could, possibly, build a force to take the war back to the Invardii
.

  Besides, thought Bosun with a sour grimace, when you couldn’t move your people anywhere else, you didn’t have a choice but to hang on by your fingertips.

  HISTORIAN’S REPORT

  Warfare is terrifying. I think it is much worse in space, where everything happens silently, and the person on the receiving end cannot see who is pulling the trigger.

  I have a place on the bridge of Air Marshall Cagill’s command ship. That is to say, my life support pod has a place where it can be clipped onto the back wall. I am not sure that is the same thing. From the point of view of recording events, I am certainly at the center of the action. I may also be in one of the safest places in the Alliance forces, though it doesn’t feel like it.

  I dictate directly to my private memory banks when I can, and select from the messages and images Cagill is party to for later scrutiny. Everyone ignores me. I am not part of the fighting force, so I am no use to them. I know it isn’t personal, but it’s hard to operate in a social vacuum.

  Cagill has the disconcerting habit of raising the protective screens around the front of the bridge when we go into battle. Anyone on the bridge can see all that is happening around them.

  Cagill says there is no substitute for your own eyes when you have to make instantaneous decisions. His crew seem used to his way of doing things, but to me the constant parade of destructive devices and occasional death terrifies me.

  I have been certain we would die twice now, and I have lost control of my bowels on both occasions. Fortunately my life support systems take over as soon as they sense what is happening, and no one apart from myself is aware of this evidence of my terror.

  Perhaps I became an historian to avoid life, but if that was the case, it hasn’t worked. My vocation, my need to record the history of our planet, has taken me into a position very much like front line news reporting. Whether my new-found interest in surviving has affected the records I create will be an interesting topic later, if there is anyone left to raise it. If I die in the fighting, I presume the question will no longer matter to me.