“Jeneen and I can do just as good a job,” said Celia defensively. “It’s not important who does it.”
“That’s not the point,” said Roberto, “I want to know why I’m being demoted. Don’t you trust me to do the job properly?”
“You have been hard on him lately,” said Andre, in support of Roberto, “and I can’t see that he’s done anything wrong.”
“Oh, nothing wrong, huh,” she exploded. “Getting drunk and making an idiot of himself in a public place is hardly nothing!”
“I was not drunk!” said Roberto, raising his voice over hers. “I drank the barn punch most of the night, and that was non-alcoholic.
“Besides,” he said, lowering his voice, “I did not make a spectacle of myself. I did the one thing in my life I can truly be proud of.”
Celia went to say something, and then her voice caught. She stood for a moment, halfway between tears and anger, then walked out of the room.
Jeneen came and put her hand on Roberto’s shoulder.
“I think this is one of those times when the truth doesn’t actually help, Robbie. Still, that was a very noble sentiment, and it says a lot about you.”
Celia stormed back in, upset with herself for losing control of her emotions.
“I run this department, and you had all better get used to it!” she said angrily. “I say who does what, and when they do it. If you don’t want to do things my way, then Finch can find you a job in another department!”
Jeneen rolled her eyes, and shook her head. Andre stepped forward and took a deep breath.
“No, you don’t run this department, Celia,” he said evenly. “We’ve always been a team and we like the way you lead us, but this time you’ve let your personal demands get in the way of the team, and that’s not good enough.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he continued, meeting Celia’s gaze head on. “I’m the old fart here, and that gives me the right to knock heads together.” He paused, then made his point.
“Now both of you cool down, and show some restraint!
“Roberto, let Jeneen do the inventories, okay?”
Roberto nodded.
“Celia, you get your house in order, and you do it now! That will mean talking to Roberto about what’s bothering you. Is that clear!”
Celia stood for a long time, clenching and unclenching her hands, trying to work out her priorities. At last she nodded.
“Good,” said Andre, “now let’s get back to work. When the lunch break arrives I want everyone in the cafe, and I want us all talking civilly to each other, got it!”
They all nodded.
No one had anything else to add, and they slowly drifted off in different directions.
Jeneen looked at Andre with new eyes.
“I didn’t know you could do that,” she said wonderingly, as they walked out of the room. “I thought you were an easy-going guy from the top of your funny hairdo to the last toe on your squat little feet.”
It was Andre’s turn to cuff her across the back of the head.
“So did I,” he said quietly, “and I hope I never have to do that again. I’m going to be a nervous wreck for the rest of the day.”
“There, there,” cooed Jeneen, “muffin buns knows how to make it all better.”
Andre laughed out loud. She really was the best thing to ever happen to him.
The next day it was back to the training schedule for the Valkrethi. The schedule had recently been stepped up a notch, and they were now pushing the limits of what the huge, sophisticated machines could do.
The research team assembled once more in the cavern under Prometheus. They identified themselves at the heel of their giant lookalikes, and climbed the slim ladders to the rider’s position.
“Listen up, people!” said Cagill, once the two squadrons of pilots and the four researchers had put their Valkrethi through the warm up routine.
“We salvaged three Reaper ships from the action on the ice planet, and managed to get the shields on two of them working again.
“We know the Valkrethi can draw power from sources nearby, and use it for themselves. Some of you used that ability at the ice planet, to keep reserves of power above minimum levels. But this time we’re going to use the full power of the enemy plasma shields to recharge the Valkrethi.”
This made a lot of sense to Roberto. He had studied fighting styles in his earlier years, and the maxim that it was best to use your opponents’ strength against them had been drilled into him.
The Valkrethi generated a baseline of power from small internal reactors that would essentially last for ever, but they could also pull in power from sources nearby and use it to supplement reserves. In the heat of battle the energy levels of their giant mounts were often quickly depleted. That could force them to do less, or pull out of the action for a while to replenish those reserves.
“And we’ve got a little surprise for you,” said Cagill.
“It wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you what it was – and one of the great lessons of warfare is to expect the unexpected. So, we’ll leave it until you get out there and think you’re doing all right!”
This was sobering news. Cagill’s idea of surprises in the past had been downright frightening. The pilots’ nervous systems began to register a degree of nervousness along with their current levels of excitement.
“The training grounds are at the limit of the Valkrethi range as we start from Prometheus,” said Cagill.
“When the ejection system has shot you clear of the moon’s gravity, set the homing pattern for these coordinates,” he said, and downloaded the coordinates to all of them.
Roberto activated his optics and pulled up the coordinates onto a visual of the Solar System. He found them just inside the orbit of Pluto, and that was, indeed, a long jump for the Valkrethi. The acceleration and deceleration in the middle of the jump was going to be physically hard on all of the pilots.
“Alpha Squadron follows Alpha leader, Delta Squadron follows me, and the research team follows their leader. Is that understood?”
Giant heads nodded all around the cavern.
“Alpha Squadron, disembark,” said Cagill briskly, and a squadron of ten Valkrethi lumbered across the cavern, gaining speed as they approached the ejection system. The first launched itself at the center of the ring, and was picked up by the force field and flung through the tunnel into the vastness of space. The others followed rapidly.
Once they were clear of Prometheus, the Valkrethi brought up the coordinates on their optics. For each of them a long sinuous thread snaked out across the optic screen, connecting them to the desired point.
Minuscule hand movements activated the transportation systems, and one by one the Valkrethi began to move. The acceleration of each picked up exponentially, until they blurred and were gone. As the acceleration approached the stage at which the Humans would black out, they increased the explosive breath techniques they had been taught to keep blood flowing to their brains.
There was a moment’s stomach-churning weightlessness when the drive shifted over, and suddenly they were slammed forward in the servo-mech compartments as the equally vicious deceleration began.
Roberto activated his homing system as his Valkrethi began to slow to more normal speeds, and a blue dot blinked into life in his optics. He veered left to head toward it. A few moments later he saw other specks, barely visible in the pale, watery light from the far distant Sun, descending on the same position.
“Count off!” came Cagill’s voice in his ear. The Valkrethi positional telemetry showed them where the others were, but counting off confirmed the pilots had all survived the jump without damage. Once that was accomplished Cagill carried on with his briefing.
“First part of this mission is to use the search systems to find the enemy ships I’ve hidden out here. The second part is to draw power from their shields to replace what we’ve just used in the jump. The two best performers get to take the Reaper ships apart.”
Roberto got busy setting his search systems. He was keen to find the blinking orange dots that meant an enemy ship was within range – they all were.
His systems told Roberto there was nothing there. He reset the systems and got them to check themselves for errors. When that didn’t make any difference he moved his Valkrethi away from the others. He wanted to check for objects hidden behind Pluto – coming up on his far right – or behind some of the larger comets in the Oort cloud much farther out in the Solar System. Nothing showed on his systems.
Cagill had lived up to his promise. It was a surprise all right, and their boss was deliberately making this hard.
Roberto began to tick off mentally what Cagill might have done to hide the Reaper ships. Then he stopped abruptly. One of his old fighting style teachers had specialized in reconnaissance. What had he said? Yes, that was it – the best approach was to hide in plain sight.
So what had Cagill done with the Reaper ships? Then the answer came.
He had turned off the shields, that’s what he’d done. Maybe they would activate when one of the Javelins came within a certain distance. Or he had tampered with the Valkrethi systems so they wouldn’t read the Reaper ship energy signatures. That was unlikely, considering how little Prometheus knew so far about how the Valkrethi systems actually worked.
So, there were two enemy ships out there, but they wouldn’t be producing a signal on any of the usual electromagnetic spectrums, if they were producing a signal at all. And even the metals used in their construction might have been disguised in some way.
There had to be an answer!
CHAPTER 17
________________
It took Roberto a while to figure out what he had to do. A two-pilot team would improve the sensitivity of the Valkrethi search systems. That would extend their range, and allow them to triangulate in on their target.
Roberto hesitated. Normally he would form a team with Celia, but that probably wasn’t such a good idea at the moment. Then he saw two of the Valkrethi peel off from the main group and start a search pattern of their own. A quick check on the long-range sensors showed him they were Andre and Jeneen.
Dammit! The other research team members had come to the same conclusion as himself, and that left Celia as the only one he could team up with. None of the Javelin pilots would understand what he was up to. They were strictly ‘by the book’ thinkers.
“Request you join me in a two-pilot sweep of the surrounding area,” he said, on a comms band limited to the two of them.
A terse, “why?” came back.
Roberto outlined his plan, and his reasons. There was a long silence.
A short, “very well” finally came back over the link. Celia’s agreement managed to convey that being on a damaged Javelin on a suicidal course with the Sun would be a preferably option.
Roberto rolled his eyes in exasperation, and wondered if his Valkrethi rolled its eyes as well. Probably. He had seen most of the Human facial expressions appear on the Valkrethi at some time. Still, Celia had agreed to help, he might as well be gentlemanly about it.
The two Valkrethi formed themselves into a sweep team and began to tease information out of the surrounding area. It was an interesting piece of detective work, and it didn’t take long to get results.
Two ‘comets’ that seemed, against chance, to have found a short-term orbital path past Pluto, showed a strange mix of characteristics. The scan results could be interpreted as an inner metal shell of some sort, covered by a thin layer of rock-like material.
Clever, thought Roberto, and his estimation of Cagill went up a few notches.
“Take one each?” he said to Celia, and received an affirmative, granted with a little more respect than she had shown lately.
She’s impressed, he thought with a smile. Despite herself, she’s impressed. Probably still hates me though. Then he turned his attention to the first of the false comets as it curved around Pluto toward him.
The Reaper ship came to life as he approached it. The super-heated shields burned away the false exterior in seconds, and the familiar, and hated, fiery surface of the Invardii ship appeared. Roberto got his Valkrethi scan it, but there didn’t appear to be anything out of the ordinary. It was a standard Reaper ship shield over a spar and hub construction, exactly the same as the ones he had destroyed in the battle above the ice planet.
He dropped into the surging orange shields, and felt the familiar sticky sensation as they held the Valkrethi for a moment, and thousands of degrees of heat surged around him. He initiated the command to restore the Valkrethi’s energy levels, and watched the lower part of the optic screen as the reserve indicator returned to its optimum levels.
Roberto called in the discovery of the two enemy ships, and the rest of the Valkrethi were soon hovering around the two discoveries.
“Well done,” said Cagill to Celia and Roberto. “Good to see you were on the ball. You might have to show the rest of us a few of your tricks when we get back to base.
“Right,” he continued to the other pilots, “I want each of you to charge up your Valkrethi from the shields, and then we’ll let our two research teamers here destroy their prizes.”
The others moved to restore their energy reserves, and then it was time for Roberto to try a little something new that he had been working on.
He slid into the orange shield, and forced his way through the tension as it tried to hold him fast, until he was inside. Then he moved his Valkrethi until it was just above the nearest hub. He wasn’t sure exactly how this was going to work, but if he had it figured right . . .
An ‘acknowledged’ symbol came on, and a thin blue beam lanced out from one hand and lodged in the shields above it. The differential between them increased, and the Valkrethi became a conduit for the boiling skin of plasma above it. Roberto reached out the other hand, and locked the earthing end of the link onto the hub below him.
He closed the circuit, and searing plasma flashed between the orange shield and the hub. The hub withstood the onslaught for a moment, but then it tore apart. Roberto watched as his own shields began to take damage as the super-heated plasma seared around his mount, and hastily broke the connection.
It was a pretty good party trick, but it also took a lot out of the Valkrethi. He would have to remember that. It should be kept as an emergency option only. Roberto looked at the damage the plasma had done to the hub, and decided he had learned all he was going to learn about the Valkrethi today.
“Come on in, guys and gals,” he broadcast on the open channel, “the water’s fine.”
The other Valkrethi worked their way through the orange shields of his Reaper ship, and began shredding spars and hubs with obvious enjoyment. Roberto set a course for Celia’s Valkrethi, and arrived there at the same time as she found the power system for the shields of her captured ship.
She destroyed the controls, and climbed back out of the hole she had made in one of the hubs. The Reaper ship looked so different without its shields. She looked around for the largest hub, and headed there. In moments she had disabled the ship’s reactor. She was just clear of the Invardii ship when the reactor blew apart, and the structure collapsed in on itself. Roberto coasted to a stop beside her.
“Nice job,” he said, by way of congratulations.
“Yes, well, that was an inspired idea of yours to run a survey for Reaper ships that were powered down in the vicinity,” she admitted.
So, we’re talking again, thought Roberto cautiously. He didn’t want to push his luck too far, so he set the homing system to rejoin the other Valkrethi, and the two of them coasted back in companionable silence.
Cagill went through the usual debriefing exercise once they were all back on Prometheus, and the Valkrethi had been stored away.
“We’ve learned a lot from today, people, and we may change the engagement rules because of it. Smaller groups, with more communication as things unfold, for example.
“But that will have to
wait.” He said, waiting until he had everyone’s attention.
“Cordez has outlined a series of attacks on Invardii shipyards! We’re going to cripple their ability to make Reaper ships,” he said briskly.
The pilots moved restlessly. They were at last going to take the fight to the Invardii, and they liked the sound of that – a lot.
“Before we attack the shipyards, he wants to reduce their ability to defend the shipyards a little further, so we’re going to set a trap for a whole lot of Reaper ships.” This had the pilots really interested.
“We’re going to hide the Valkrethi on Aqua Regis, and then attack the enemy mining site at the Barrens with Javelins and Sumerian warships. The Invardii will be reeling from the slaughter of their entire force at the Alamos system, and they may be tempted to try for a decisive victory at Aqua Regis. Our tactical people think they will send the last of their flagships as well.”
There was a long silence after this. The Valkrethi hadn’t yet been tried against a flagship, and while the giant figures were impressive fighting machines they weren’t indestructible.
Still, that was part of being a pilot in any battle. You took your life in your hands. You always had to ask yourself, did you believe in what you were doing, and was it worth the ultimate cost?
“We fly out in two days time,” continued Cagill. “The usual rules apply, so everything we do is a mystery to everyone else.
“Go about your business as usual. Don’t try to explain why you won’t be here in a few day’s time, and no bedroom blabbing, got it?”
They all nodded. They knew why Cagill had these rules. Their boss didn’t think the Invardii had an agent inside Prometheus, but he didn’t want his fighters’ concentration wrecked by heartfelt best wishes – or teary goodbyes.
A few minutes later the group disbanded. The research team split at the exit, Andre and Jeneen taking the underground shuttle to the living quarters, while Celia and Roberto took the short passage back to the labs.
They fell into step after they had exited the automatic airlock out of the cavern.
Invardii Box Set 2 Page 29