Antares Crucible

by Warwick Gibson

  “Old enemies I would think,” said Cordez.

  There was a moment’s silence. The Druanii had paid a heavy price to help the Alliance in this battle.

  “What were those rings they came out of?” said Cagill.

  “I’m told they were spatial displacement vectors,” said Finch. “What you or I would call wormholes. The research teams here at Prometheus are going nuts over them. They are theoretically possible, but would require an almost infinite amount of energy.

  “The Druanii must have found a way to lower the potentiality of space, thin it out somehow. That’s the only way they could hide outside of normal space for extended periods of time the way they did.”

  “Great trick if you know how to do it,” said Cagill in disbelief.

  “What about the other ships?” said Kanuk, who was standing beside Cagill on his bridge. “Where did they come from?”

  “They all come from Druanii protectorates,” said Cagill, who had been able to call upon Subdirector’s knowledge in these matters. The Orion wasn’t present. It had taken itself off for some sort of regeneration process while the meeting took place.

  “The boxy, squat ships are from a small cluster of suns in what we call the Centaur constellation. Surprisingly they don’t have stardrive, and I’m guessing the Druanii brought them here and cloaked them. Right up to the time when they helped Kanuk’s tetrarch fight its way through to the center of the Buccra forces.”

  That stopped the conversation again. The commanders all vividly remembered the turning point in the battle. It had looked like it was going to be a bloody confrontation right down to the last ship, taking forever. Then they were delivered into a winning position by the sudden appearance of the Druanii ships and their allies.

  “Most of the Centaur ships made it through the day,” said AldSanni. “The Sumerian forces report tracking them back to the outer parts of the Antares system when the flagships emerged from the sun. They were gone before the city began to use its plasma weapons.”

  “Wise move,” said Cordez with a smile. “We weren’t that far behind them.”

  “I don’t think we can count on the Centaur ships for more than what they have already done,” said Cagill. “They’ve got little left of their heat shields, or much in the way of mines to lay down I think.

  “We’ve tracked them making their way out of the Antares system – very slowly I might add, without stardrive – and I imagine the Druanii will take them home when this is all over.”

  There was a moment’s thoughtful silence.

  “And the gray bubbles?” said Kanuk.

  “That’s not so clear,” said Cagill. “Even with Subdirector explaining things it took a long time to find out where they came from.

  “They’re from so far out on the edge of the galaxy we couldn’t place them in any of the constellations we know. Their language is pretty much beyond us. It’s all sensory statements, dozens of words for finely differing grades of basic emotions, but they call themselves after a color, the one we call magenta.

  “Each of those bubbles contained the life force of one of them, as best as I can make out. From the number of bubbles the Reaper ships in particular destroyed today, they died in their thousands.”

  There was no comment that could follow that, and the bridge was silent for a long time.

  Eventually Cordez said quietly, “and they destroyed a great number of Invardii and Buccra vessels. We must always remember them for that.”

  “The bubbles are more fragile then the Centaur ships,” continued Cagill, “or any of the Alliance ships for that matter.

  “They can’t operate close to the Antares sun, so I don’t know if they can help us when it comes to the final push on the Invardii city. I’m also not sure they would want to, following the losses they have already sustained.”

  Mention of the Invardii city dampened the thoughts of all of them. The Alliance had cut the number of enemy ships in half, but with the appearance of the flagships, and the city’s plasma weapons, any attack on the city itself would be close to suicide.

  “Let’s cross our bridges one at a time,” said Cordez diplomatically, and brought the meeting to a close.

  The others knew he always had back-up plans, but they were plans that weren’t finalized, ones he kept to himself. For now they would just have to believe in his leadership, and believe in themselves to hammer home the final links of the battle plan.

  Cagill found himself strangely wistful. Day three, he murmured. Tomorrow would be day three. Heaven help them all if Fedic couldn’t provide them with a miracle tomorrow.

  Whether Fedic did, or didn’t, he thought somberly, it was going to be a very long day.

  The man he was thinking about was in the middle of a catnap. Of all Human nervous systems, his was perhaps the most flexible, but he was being stretched to his limits and beyond.

  He came out of a troubled sleep as the ship’s alarm told him, yet again, that the speed of the inside-out torus that was his ship had fallen below the minimum he needed.

  Fifteen minutes was never enough time to develop REM sleep. A backlog of images, dreamed up by his agitated brain, kept trying to stamp themselves on the back of his eyeballs.

  If he stopped concentrating for even a moment, he was back in one of the unholy conflicts he had endured in his long career. Or even worse, devilish characters would prance and gibber at the edges of his vision, poking at the delicate instrumentation of the bridge and driving him to distraction.

  Still, according to his calculations, he should be almost there.

  Trying to ‘see’ through the murk of the red super giant with his sensors was a hit and miss affair, but several times now he had caught a solid echo from something ahead of him.

  He tried the sensors again, and this time a massive shape was outlined briefly on the screen, until the image was lost to interference. Almost there then, he muttered. He sighed, and followed that with a deep breath to brace himself. It was time for the final showdown.

  The ruddy murk of the Antares star cleared, and the sheer wall at the back of the Invardii city loomed over him. It stretched impossibly far in every direction. A little to his right vast, square bays projected from the smooth wall, and he knew he had found the heat exchangers.

  An alarm sounded briskly, and one of his screens shifted to show a Reaper ship approaching along the wall below him. Fedic eased back into the murk, confident it would keep him out range of the Reaper ship’s sensors. His job was going to be difficult enough without Invardii patrols. How was he going to deal with them?

  On the other side of the city the Alliance was in the process of pushing the enemy warships back to the surface of the star, and the city’s last line of defense. The flagships, and the Reaper ships on patrol around the city, were about to pour out of the star and into battle.

  The Reaper ship patrolling near Fedic, and another a long way to his right, were suddenly recalled to help. They turned away to join other ships, all of them moving out of the star to attack the Alliance.

  CHAPTER 31

  ________________

  Fedic eased his strange torus ship toward the vast sound shell directly ahead of him. It protected the back of the Invardii city from the fires of the Antares sun, but its shielding effect wasn’t enough on its own. The city had heat exchangers on a scale that he doubted anyone could imagine, and he was lining up on them so he could destroy them.

  He hesitated for a moment, but when it was clear the Reaper ships weren’t coming back, he armed a spread of thermonuclear missiles. Moments later he sent them on their way toward the vast, square structures attached to the back of the sound shell.

  Brief white points flared in the ruddy murk of the Antares sun, and a number of holes appeared in the outer layers of the exchangers. That surprised him. He had expected more damage, and decided the metals must be sophisticated alloys, reinforced with an energy shielding.

  Now he had a problem. He wasn’t getting through to the vast bays o
f machinery that lay deeper inside the exchangers. Fedic guided the torus closer, and couldn’t see any obviously weak points to attack. This was getting him nowhere. He needed to find a vital point and disable it.

  Then he saw something that might do the job. It was a raised dome over a shaft that looked like it ran down into the heart of the large, square structures. He fired another set of missiles, all aimed at the same point, and a good-sized crater appeared where the top of the shaft used to be. Now he could see that the remains of the shaft where it led much deeper into the city.

  That was where he needed to target his remaining missiles, but the turbulent currents within the star were pushing the torus around, and moving some of the deadly devices off course. He needed to be more accurate, and he needed to unload the missiles as one continuous train if he was to cripple the city. No, he would have to be much closer, and that meant he would be too close to his own missiles when they detonated.

  Fedic desperately tried to think of another way to drop his remaining missiles down the shaft. Then he saw Reaper ships converging on his position from several directions. It hadn’t taken them long to figure out what he was up to, and they were just as desperate to stop him as he was to succeed.

  Fedic shrugged. He had always known he wasn’t coming back from this one. Then he moved his ship directly over the shaft.

  Setting the remaining missiles to detonate on impact, he ran the torus down the opening below him. The ship fitted inside the shaft, just, and long seconds passed as it accelerated downward.

  Fedic had time to pat the instrument panel in front of him, and said, “well done, girl,” before the ship slammed into a junction where the long corridor split in several directions. The heat exchanger tore apart from the inside out.

  Fedic had accomplished his mission, and it was only a matter of time before the Alliance ships on the other side of the Invardii city knew that too. The temperature inside the Invardii would soon start to rise rapidly.

  The first to notice was a long-range sensor officer on Cagill’s command Javelin. He got the information to Cagill as fast as he could.

  “Fedic’s done it!” said Cagill, and the bridge on the command Javelin went deathly quiet.

  Cagill didn’t bother to repeat himself.

  “Look at this,” he said,bringing up a 3D representation in front of him and flicking an array of energy readings onto it.

  Earlier scans of the Invardii city had showed a substantial mass in the outer layers of the Antares sun at a temperature well below its surroundings. The particle radiation pouring out of the star distorted the readings a little, but the results were clear enough.

  But now, as every eye on the bridge watched a sped up process on the thermal imager, the wavering blob that showed the Invardii city started to disappear before their eyes.

  “The city’s taking on the temperature of its surroundings,” said Cagill quietly, and some of the others nodded. They could all see it. It was a miracle, but Fedic must have got through, somehow.

  “The change has been noticeable for nearly an hour,” said Cagill. “Imperceptible at first, but accelerating now. I think they’ve got a problem on their hands.”

  Cagill’s heart leaped at the thought. Godsdammit, the Alliance might just have a chance!

  His comms officer opened sub space links with Cordez and Prometheus. Cordez’ bleary appearance, and the darkness outside his home office, told Cagill it was night time in the South Am block. The Regent might have been asleep, but he was waking up fast. Finch appeared to be in the middle of his normal working day at Prometheus.

  Cagill explained the situation.

  “The Invardii city may have stardrive capabilities,” said Finch promptly. “We’re working through the information the research team downloaded from the archive on Ba’H’Roth, and that’s one thing we’ve learned. I would hate for it to get away from us now.”

  “Yes, that could be a problem,” said Cagill. “Subdirector has been passing on more details about the treaties we should be able to use to force the Invardii back to the core of the galaxy. As far as the treaties are concerned the city is equivalent to the cell. If the city escapes, we haven’t defeated the cell.”

  “It’s worse than that,” said Finch. “According to the material Fedic brought back from Mentuk, even a flagship is considered a seed ship, and could start the cycle all over again.”

  “So what you’re saying,” said Cordez slowly, “is that we have to win this war convincingly. If we don’t destroy the city, or we leave just one flagship still functional, it’s only a draw as far as the Invardii are concerned?”

  There was silence on the bridge of the command Javelin. It was clear the war wasn’t going to be over soon, and it wasn’t going to be over easily. The Alliance would have to hunt down and destroy everything bigger than a Reaper ship, and they would have to go through the rest of the Invardii and Buccra forces to do it.

  “Stand off from the sun,” said Cordez, “and wait for the Invardii to make the first move. It is possible the city was badly damaged in the attack on the heat exchanger, and if the power sources were involved it might blow up with the force of a small sun. When I get back to you, set up a loop with me here at South Am and Finch at Prometheus. Keep it open permanently from now on.”

  He knew that Cagill would do as he asked, and closed the connection at that point. Asura had left him alone while he took the call, and now she brought in a tray from the adjoining room, with a steaming cup of a his favorite brew.

  Cordez had asked Asura to leave the Summer Palace and stay with him until the attack on the Antares sun was over, one way or another. He had expected that the losses on both sides would be heavy, but now it seemed it could only be a victory if one side damn near exterminated the other.

  His hand started to shake, and Asura took the cup from him and put it back on the tray. Then she wrapped herself around him.

  “So many are going to die,” he said, his voice a cracked whisper. “All the races of the Alliance, even the Invardii, much as they’re an enemy. So many have already gone. Fedic has been taken.”

  His body shook, and Asura held him and waited for the uncertainty and doubt to pass. She trusted in him. She believed he would come through this. Slowly, with her belief in him, the pain inside his soul began to subside.

  When Cagill received a sub space hail, and re-opened the link to the Solar System a little later, Cordez was surrounded by his military aides. The Regent, de facto ruler of Earth, was ready to see this thing through to the end. Asura sat serenely at his side.

  Inside the Antares sun, Kalken floated in the middle of the command sphere of her flagship, already well past the limits of her hybrid body on a shift that looked like it would never end. The flagship was at maximum readiness, and it was dealing with the tactical load of all the battles that raged out there in the Antares system. The problems she faced, and the news of the attack on the other side of the city, were pushing the new Invardii cell beyond its limits.

  Automated repair teams were trying to rebuild the heat exchangers, but there was too much damage. It was clear the city would reach critical temperatures well before they had accomplished anything useful.

  If the city had been built with stardrive capability it would be a simple matter to shift the enormous structure to a more comfortable temperature zone in orbit round the sun. Unfortunately building stardrive units would have taken time and resources away from the city’s defenses, and the production of Reaper ships, so they had been left to another time.

  “Rock dwelling slime!” exploded Kalken. How often the Invardii had underestimated them. How cleverly they had chipped away at the Invardii cell, forcing errors, setting the cell back in its progress. How had it come to this?

  The city mind sent another of its garbled messages, and Kalken knew the time she dreaded was near. While the city mind had control of the auto-destruct sequences it could destroy itself, the command flagship, and most of their remaining forces. She had com
e to believe that it might in its madness do exactly that, simply to strike a passing blow at the forces that assailed them.

  But Kalken couldn’t allow that to happen. She sent a coded message to one of her higher-ranking officers, the one who had birthed her and whose DNA she most closely shared. One she had always trusted to have the same approach to tactics and strategy as herself.

  The officer hesitated, and Kalken felt her frayed nerves grow closer to breaking point. She loaded another dose of neurotransmitters into her system to adjust her emotional state, but it had little effect. She knew she was doing damage to the sensitive bio-core in her hybrid self, but it was just too important that she keep functioning a while longer.

  The officer finally sent a message to the city, containing the subroutine Kalken had anguished over for so long. She thought of the subroutine as a ‘disorganizer’, and had come across the idea in the historic Annals of War from the early millennia of her race, when the Invardii had spread out across the core of the galaxy. Then, they had met a number of devious adversaries, and they had learned to be inventive to survive.

  The disorganizer sped along encrypted superhighways to the city mind, and passed unseen into the mind’s working matrix as a simple information-gathering slave function. Once there, however, it wrote exponentially increasing copies of itself, and each one hunted down one of the city mind’s simplest functions and tied it up in endless loops chasing unknowable data.

  Kalken could only hope the overall effect would be swift enough to stop the city mind before it could take some insane action against itself or the enemy forces. She doubted the city mind was lucid enough now to recognize and stop the disorganizer as it attacked its mind from within.

  A directive sending the command flagship out against the enemy forces came back from the city, and Kalken ignored it. A torrent of further commands, many incoherent, followed, all heavily loaded with command overtones. These were harder to ignore, but Kalken steeled herself against the conditioning present in all Invardii to obey the city mind. She waited patiently for the disorganizer to do its work.