Antares Crucible

by Warwick Gibson

  Cordez had been expecting this answer. If the Druanii threw their weight behind a desperate attempt to win freedom for the races in the Spiral Arm, they might simply go down fighting alongside the Alliance.

  Cordez had activated an alarm as soon as the gray ball had started to form in his living room, and Celia’s tired face now appeared on the screen he had set up on the table. He didn’t know when she’d last slept, or when any of her team had.

  Fedic Vits had brought the Invardii-Druanii treaties to Cordez personally, arriving unannounced at his South Am headquarters a week ago. He was still recovering from his ordeal in Cordez’ guest rooms. Cordez had recognized the importance of the treaties at once, and sent the data files to Prometheus.

  Celia and her team had been trying to put the treaties in order of likely usefulness to the Alliance ever since. They had been working on the project day and night.

  “What have you got?” said Cordez, turning his head away from Subdirector to do so.

  “Most of the treaties are redundancies,” she said, “relying on previous agreements or stipulating that the same conditions need to apply. We didn’t think you’d want to go round in circles like that, so we concentrated on stand-alone situations the Alliance might be able to use.

  “We’ve been working on a list, in order of most likely usefulness, and all I can suggest at this stage is I send you the top twenty treaties. The problem is that the more significant treaties were established earlier in the history of the two races, so most of those at the top of the list are quite ancient.”

  “I think that’s going to be a plus,” said Cordez, pleased with what the research team had managed to accomplish. “As long as no later treaties have null and voided any of the earlier ones.”

  “No, definitely not,” said Celia. “We were very particular about that. The whole of our operations room is covered in timelines and flow charts, with retroactive loops that invalidated more than half the treaties. But these ones are clean. They are still in force.”

  “I can’t say how much this means to all of us,” said Cordez, touched by the way the research team had run themselves into the ground to get him this information. “I think it will turn out to be the best ammunition we’ve got against the Invardii.”

  “It’s what we’re here for,” said Celia, with a tired smile. Another figure joined her on the screen in front of Cordez, a tall male figure that he remembered seeing at Prometheus once or twice. Roberto, wasn’t it?

  “She’s a princess, the best leader we could ever hope for,” said Roberto. He put his arm around Celia’s shoulders before squeezing her gently. The gesture reminded Cordez of himself and Asura when they were in their private quarters. He smiled. They seemed a happy couple.

  “Next time I’m out at Prometheus I’ll thank the research team in person,” said the Regent, and ended the transmission. He turned back toward Subdirector.

  “I’m sending you some information that will change the mind of the Druanii,” he said, and relayed Celia’s data files onward.

  Subdirector said nothing, and then another Orion sidled into the picture. There was much animated waving of the fern-like fronds that adorned their bodies.

  “This is one last message to the Druanii people,” said Cordez reassuringly. “Ancient treaties that the Invardii must abide by. On the strength of your trust in me, take them to the Druanii.”

  At the mention of ancient treaties, the two Orion seemed to hesitate. Cordez could only hope they would take a chance, and do as he asked.

  “What you require of us poses great risk to Orion,” said Subdirector. “This is difficult for us. We have to balance destruction of our race with fate of many other races. Invardii, mmm, suspect our messages to Druanii already.”

  Subdirector paused, and Cordez felt his heart stop.

  “We will send message on,” said Subdirector at last, “but Druanii must decide if we can contact you again. Danger is very great for us.”

  Cordez assured the two Orion that this would be a perfectly acceptable solution.

  “For the good of the many,” said Subdirector, and the gray ball slowly faded from Cordez’ living room.

  As Cordez thought about what he had asked the Orion to do, it made him feel sick at heart. How could he risk the destruction of a peaceful race like the Orion to increase the chances of survival of Earth and the Alliance? He wasn’t sure that what he had just done had been entirely ethical, though the Orion had chosen to do as he asked in full knowledge of the possible consequences.

  Cordez stood up and began to pace the room. He knew the activity was a good way to clear his head. After a while he drew one, long, deep breath.

  Whatever the ethics of the situation, the die was now cast. All he could do was be as ready as he could to field whatever the situation threw at him. He could feel it in his bones. The war was entering the end game.

  Out at Prometheus, part of that end game was being put into place, and the second event Cordez was looking for was underway.

  “So, we’re going back to Orouth,” said Celia, standing at attention in Finch’s office, “and we’re going to bring the remaining Valkrethi back to Prometheus?”

  “Exactly,” said Finch. “Cagill’s already been told to prepare all his Valkrethi pilots, and the reserves have been told they’re going too. There’s barely enough personnel to ferry the 162 Valkrethi remaining at Maka’H’Rosh to the freighters.

  “I thought I’d tell you in person, since you’re non-military personnel, and under my command more than Air Marshall Cagill’s.”

  Celia nodded.

  “Matsu Fujimi, and his assistant Meeaniro, will be attached to your team for the trip. Cordez doesn’t want to draw attention to the mission, so you’ll be going in fast and light, the same as you did the first time around. On the other hand he doesn’t want to leave you entirely undefended either.

  The remaining Valkrethi will be in storage on the way back, so you won’t be able to count on them if there’s trouble, and they don’t have a long distance stardrive capability that would allow them to run escort duty anyway. Matsu will be your ‘insurance’ against attack by the Invardii, do you understand?”

  Celia nodded vigorously. She had followed Matsu’s work on sub space pulses with interest, and knew how the technology could be used to tow missiles inside enemy ships, even though that work was supposed to be still experimental.

  “The task force will be carrying sub space generators and missiles, do you understand what I’m saying?” continued Finch.

  “I am fully conversant with his work,” replied Celia crisply. She was on the verge of snapping a salute, but thought it might be a bit over the top. She liked playing soldiers, it had an order and simplicity about it that appealed to her researcher’s brain.

  “Good,” said Finch. “I don’t want to have to bumble my way through an explanation when the topic is more your field than mine.

  “You’ve got 24 hours to get yourself and your research team organized. You’ll be taking the Orouth Freighter once again, but the lower decks will need to be cleared, so some of the Valkrethi can be stored there on the way back.

  “Understood?”

  This time it was okay to snap a crisp salute. She barked a quick ‘yessir’, and wheeled to march out the door when Finch gave her the ‘dismissed’ command.

  Finch was left a little bemused at the even-more-military-than-the-military approach of the civilian research head.

  CHAPTER 17

  ________________

  A convoy of eight bulky freighters left Prometheus at the close of the following day. It was four more days into the long stardrive flight to Orouth when Cagill’s navs officer relayed the news the Air Marshall least wanted to hear.

  “We’re being tracked,” said the navs officer. “Probably have been for some time, but the sub space pulses are strengthening, indicating they’re closer to us now.”

  The officer paused, and confirmed a reading on his console.

 
“At least one vessel matching speed with us. It’s impossible to tell how close it is while we’re in stardrive, or whether it’s ahead of us or behind.”

  It wouldn’t be just one, Cagill knew that. The news filled him with a sinking feeling. One of the Buccra warships would be doing the tracking, but it would be part of a group of ships.

  He wouldn’t send a sub space message to Cordez. That might tip off the Buccra that they had been spotted. There was also no need, as he had orders that covered this situation. He was to press on regardless, and improvise as the situation demanded.

  Cagill reviewed his plan to bring the Valkrethi back from Orouth, running it through his mind as he sat in his commander’s chair. The freighters were two days out from their destination now, and Cordez had ordered him to bring the Valkrethi still at Maka’H’Rosh back to Prometheus – presumably for the attack on the Invardii city.

  The freighters had been fitted with Druanii shields, but the shields didn’t work against the Buccra warships. With the warships already on their tail, they would soon be sitting ducks against superior armaments, and the frustrating ability of the Buccra ships to regenerate themselves.

  The only chance the freighters had lay with Matsu and his sub space missiles. The problem there was finding ways to deploy them that caught the Buccra unawares. Cagill could only hope some sort of answer would come to him in the next few days.

  The freighters came out of stardrive as close to Orouth as they dared. The Invardii had shown they could actually come out of stardrive within the gravitational field of a planet, which had given them an advantage several times in the past. The Buccra would doubtless be capable of the same trick.

  As soon as the convoy emerged into normal space, it closed on the upper levels of the atmosphere. Then it was sinking into the boiling gray and white shapes of massive thunderclouds at the edge of space. Cagill was finally seeing first-hand what the research team had encountered on their journey into the turbulent atmosphere of Orouth.

  The endless columns of thunderclouds rose up around the convoy. The freighters were illuminated sporadically by flashes of purple light. It came from the ozone that was created in the stratosphere by the intense solar radiation of Orouth’s sun. Ice crystals lashed the freighters, and then they plunged into the howling interior of one of the thunderclouds.

  Cagill smiled grimly. It wasn’t all that bad, at least they had so far escaped being attacked by Buccra. But the freighters were designed for space, and the best the convoy could hope for was a controlled fall through the violent storms of the planet.

  The freighters had entered the planet’s atmosphere over the southern rain forest. If they could control their descent well enough, they should emerge into the bright sunshine of the desert before they ran out of height.

  The members of the convoy were connected through their navs systems by a continuous ring of sub space pulses. It was the only thing that kept them flying in any sort of formation. Every other form of communication was disrupted by the immense electrical discharges around them.

  Cagill winced as a bolt of lightning earthed against the side of his freighter, and the lighting on the bridge dropped to a gloomy darkness before brightening again. The peal of thunder that followed was a physical blow to his ears, even inside the thickness of the hull.

  Eight green dots showed on the navs officer’s screen, and a web of sub space connections painted a rose of gold lines between them. One of the eight moved more uncertainly than the rest, and the navs officer was watching it anxiously.

  “That shuttle pilot is a brave one,” said the freighter captain, stopping beside the navs officer. One of the freighters was a shuttle in disguise, part of Cagill’s plan to outwit the Buccra, but the shuttle was having a hard job keeping up with the freighters during the descent.

  “Best pilot we’ve got,” said the navs officer.

  The freighter shook, despite its considerable size and inertial stabilizers, and the captain grabbed the back of the navs officer’s seat for support.

  Cagill smiled. The captain was making a good show of nonchalance in the circumstances, and that was good for morale, but there was no way the Air Marshall was getting out of his chair.

  He thought about the shuttle pilot, and then about the missing freighter. It was hiding somewhere in the topmost levels of Orouth’s atmosphere, far above them. If his plan didn’t work, everyone on that freighter would be the first to die. And the rest of the convoy wouldn’t be far behind them.

  Cagill’s command freighter had set up one of its shuttles with sub space messaging capability, and deployed it as soon as the convoy entered the atmosphere. When the sub space pulses began to circulate among seven of the freighters and the shuttle, the Buccra would have to assume the eight freighters they saw disappear into the extreme weather over Orouth were now descending to the surface of the planet.

  The eighth freighter, though, was currently making its way across the upper layers of the stratosphere, rigged for silent running and giving Matsu Fujimi, and everyone else on board, one Stygian hells of a ride.

  As the main group of freighters fell through the thunderclouds, Cagill could see the extraordinary light show the research team had reported during their visit to Orouth. The white glow that had been growing around the freighter became tinged with gold, then a rosy hue, before it was shot with violet streaks.

  They weren’t that far from the thermo-incline now. Cagill asked the navs officer to put their course on the overhead screen, against a large-scale map of the surface.

  The unnaturally straight line where the rain forest, and the storms, ended showed just ahead of the freighters. Their projected course looked like it would take them over the rain forest boundary and into the desert before they ran out of height, and Cagill breathed a huge sigh of relief. His plan was working – so far.

  Inside the lone freighter, far above, Matsu and Meeaniro were struggling in appalling conditions. The ship was repeatedly slammed from side to side by the ferocity of the storms it encountered as it struggled through the upper atmosphere. The internal lighting wasn’t exactly reliable either, as huge electrical surges swept over the hull.

  Matsu and Meeaniro had been preparing their new missiles for launch, and the sleek cylinders were all now primed and ready to go. Their next task was more difficult. They had to keep track of the sub space pulses circling round the main body of freighters, and constantly update their coordinates for the missile lock-on functions.

  “Convoy approaching the divide between the rain forest and the desert,” relayed the navs officer to Matsu. “We’re moving into position now. Hang on!”

  In the convoy, Cagill was rehearsing his plan with the freighter pilots one last time. The freighters were going to ‘crash’ into the desert – more in appearance than reality, he hoped fervently. The crews were standing by to spew debris from the loading bays, and start what would look like fires around the stardrive engine bays.

  There was a noticeable shudder through the hulls as the freighters lifted themselves free of the dense clouds of the thermo-incline, and the desert rushed up to meet them. Making one last attempt to hold themselves clear a little longer, the ships of the convoy raced across the gravel plain below them. They wanted to make it into the soft dunes that were appearing ahead of them.

  Cagill braced himself. Moments later his freighter struck hard and rebounded, rearing up like a belly-flopping whale. Half flung from his seat, he hung on grimly as the ship lifted free and struck again. The hull groaned, and Cagill winced. There was only so much in the way of repairs the crews could do with the equipment they had on board.

  Then the convoy finally came to rest, scattered over a wide area. Debris spewed from loading bays, as if by magic, and flames licked around a number of the engine bays as columns of smoke rose into the sky.

  “Come on, you big, dumb, Buccra slag-spawn, take the bait,” growled Cagill to himself. “Just hold off for a while and enjoy your victory, while Matsu does his magic.”r />
  “Six unidentified ships entering the atmosphere to the east of us,” reported his navs officer, “and headed our way.”

  All the freighters could do now was sit and wait. It was a bad situation to be in. Cagill realized he had never been so tense, or felt so helpless.

  In the lone freighter, Matsu was faced with a difficult decision. If the freighter left the cover of the storm clouds too early, the enemy warships might not be just below them, their attention on the ‘disaster’ so carefully stage managed in the desert. If Matsu and his team left the cover of the clouds too late, the warships might have already destroyed the freighters lying helpless on the sands.

  In the end, the decision was taken out of his hand. The towering thundercloud that had been their hiding place disintegrated, in a dozen lurid explosions, and spat them out onto the edge of space.

  The freighter might now be showing up on the Buccra instruments, and the pilot drove the freighter swiftly forward, until it came to the edge of the storm wall above the rain forest. The scene that opened up below it showed the Buccra warships already circling the downed freighters, preparing to destroy them.

  Matsu scanned the warship positions as quickly as he could, and put the coordinates into the missile systems, before frantically tapping in the firing code. There was an agonizing moment when nothing happened, and then dozens of sub space pulses leaped into existence, making strange, refracted light trails as they connected the freighters to the warships.

  The warships didn’t have time to move. Something danced along the distorted paths of light, the mesmerizing twinkle of death-bringers, and the warships imploded and were gone. They went somewhere else, but it was impossible to say where. A blast of super-heated gases made the scene shimmer, like a mirage in the desert below, and then all traces of the warships were gone.

  The sky above the desert sands was clear of the enemy ships.

  CHAPTER 18

  ________________

  Cordez watched a watery, gray ball grow larger in his living room. He closed his eyes in thanksgiving. The Druanii were responding to the treaties he had sent them through the Orion.