The villagers looked at each other. Fight under water? Hudnee didn’t like the sound of that.
CHAPTER 22
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Battrod continued his explanation. “You can see that everything the alliance throws at the Invardii base is being stopped by the orange shield. But we know that the shield doesn’t go down into the water. We should be able to move in along the sea bed, and set explosives on the base.
“Shuttles have landed on other islands as well, so we’ll be attacking from several sides at once.”
“What’s an ex-po-sav?” asked the villager on Hudnee’s right.
“Small packages, like this,” said Battrod, pulling one out of a box behind him. “Small packages that will make white fire, like the white fire that you’ve seen attacking the dome already.”
“No one can swim that far, carrying those things,” said Hudnee. “Certainly not all the way to the mining base, not if they go underwater!”
Battrod laughed.
“We’ve brought machines to help us do that,” he said. “We can get to the mining base, set the explosives, and return here, I guarantee it. Whether the Invardii will be waiting for us at the mining base I don’t know.”
That was sobering news.
“Menon left one of the Invardii-stoppers with us,” said Hudnee. “Do you know it, the rod thing you twist?”
Battrod looked up, startled. “I’ve heard about that. Matsu only made one. The pressure of work at Prometheus is enormous, and his team were diverted back to working on sub-space pulses before they could make another one.”
“The sub what?” said Hudnee, looking perplexed.
“Never mind that right now,” said Battrod. “The thing is you’ve got that rod, and it might save us all if the Invardii turn up. Don’t know if it’ll work under water though.”
From there the company divided into teams, and the Javelin pilots taught the Hud villagers what they needed to know. How to wear the head gear, ride the mechanical torpedo units, and work the re-breathers that took oxygen out of the water.
It was late afternoon when the teams slipped into the water, three to each of the torpedo units. Hudnee found it all nerve-wracking, but he took slow, deep breaths, as he’d been told.
The re-breather worked perfectly, and his confidence grew. He took a firmer grip of the handholds on the torpedo as its speed increased, and the water pressure threatened to drag him off. One of the villagers rode on the other side of the machine, and one of the Javelin pilots was steering from a control panel between them.
There was little to see on their journey in. The water in the Barrens was devoid of life, and rather murky. The bottom under them had been visible at the start, a descending plain of sludge with an occasional decaying bush or half-buried log, but that vanished after a while. They had the island on their left until they passed into the inner sea, then struck out for the mining base.
Hudnee knew when they passed under the edge of the shield. Flickers of orange light reflected down through the water, and he felt strangely exposed, as if the Invardii might be watching them. The fact he had Menon’s rod that turned them into an inert state comforted him. Finally, the pilot rapped a signal on the torpedo, and he knew the outside wall of the mining base wasn’t far ahead.
The torpedo units on either side of his one veered off to their own destinations, and were soon lost to sight. Hudnee marvelled to think that teams from other shuttles were also closing in on the mining base. They should all arrive at the exact same moment.
Then the wall of the mining base appeared out of the murk, and the torpedo unit coasted to a stop beside it. The three passengers spread out along the wall in the murky water. The sea floor was somewhere way below them, and Hudnee looked nervously around as he fixed packages to the structure. Battrod had some sort of device that would set the explosives off when they were done, and they would be back on the island when he did that.
The Javelin pilot beckoned him back onto the machine, and he swam clumsily over the short distance to reach it. When the other villager also returned, their transport turned and headed back the way it had come. The other units were waiting directly under the orange shield, and they stuck together as they returned to the island. Hudnee began to relax. Perhaps the mining base didn’t have any sort of underwater defenses.
It looked like that was the case all the way across the inland sea, until they turned between the islands of the Teeth to head back for their starting point. Then the pilot rapped on the casing of the torpedo unit to get their attention.
He pointed at his instruments, then pointing back toward the mining base. Hudnee got the message at once – something was following them. The unit veered sharply right, and picked up speed. Hudnee saw the other units vanish into the gloom. He figured they were splitting up to confuse whatever was behind them.
Hudnee tried to visualise where they might be headed for now. If his mental map was correct, they would arrive at the same island they’d left, but opposite the next island in the ring of the Teeth rather than round the back of it.
As if to confirm his theory, the sea bottom came into view, and the water became rapidly shallower. The unit grounded shortly after that, and another unit grounded beside them. The passengers emerged onto the shore, and looked back at the narrow strait between them and the next island. One of the torpedo units had grounded opposite, and had been closely followed by a many-legged contraption that Hudnee recognised from Menon’s description. It was an Invardii war machine.
The Javelin pilot on the unit opposite had managed to scramble up the slope and was now disappearing behind a rocky outcrop. The machine that had followed the unit towered over the two villagers who remained. They seemed pinned to the ground by some sort of force field.
The Javelin pilot from Hudnee’s unit ran for the shuttle in the distance, moving at tremendous speed as his system went into overdrive. Hudnee grabbed the other one. “Show me!” he demanded, pointing to the nearest unit. The pilot restarted it, and showed him how to control the throttle. Pitching wildly, Hudnee drove the machine at its maximum speed along the surface toward the opposite shore.
The Javelin pilot who had run for the shuttle returned, holding long tubes with handles and smaller, solid tubes attached, one in each hand. He handed one to the villager that had ridden alongside Hudnee, and they took aim at the Invardii war machine.
Two solid impacts from heavy slugs slammed the machine forward. It steadied itself, and a large cylinder dropped from it, turning instantly into one of the tall, orange plasma shapes.
More slugs ripped through the arms and legs of the humanoid shape, but nothing hit the cylinder running up the middle of it.
It strode forward, and crushed the life out of one of the villagers. The two shooters switched their attack to the legs of the machine, and shot out several of them in quick succession. The orange shape paused at this new attack, but the machine righted itself on its remaining legs. There was a flash of light from the crippled machine, and the ground under the shooters exploded skyward, throwing them off their feet.
The orange shape, its plasma body crackling with heat, made for the other villager.
Hudnee drove the torpedo unit up the beach and rolled off, coming to his feet and continuing at a run. He knew the rod only worked if it was close to the hybrid creature, but how close was that? The orange shape lifted a foot to crush the neck of the second villager, and Hudnee figured now was the time to find out if he was close enough.
He twisted the ends as he ran, and the orange shape abruptly vanished. It was replaced by a long cylinder lying on the ground. Lines of marking scrolled along its sides, and it swelled to a thicker middle section. The war machine above it stopped moving, and Hudnee guessed at least one more of the hybrid creatures had been inside, controlling it.
Battrick looked up from the ground at Hudnee, and got shakily to his feet.
“I owe you one,” he said, unsteadily.
Hudnee grinned, and cl
apped him on the shoulder. “You’d have done the same for me,” he said, happy to see his old friend unharmed.
They turned to the crushed corpse on the ground, and their faces darkened with anger.
“We have to do something about these sea scum,” said Battrick.
“Oh, we will,” said Hudnee. “We are, and we will, and we won’t stop until we’ve driven them off our planet.”
They ferried more of the explosives packages over to the inert war machine. Battrod set the charges and attached the last one to the cylinder on the ground. Then he heaved it inside the machine. Once they were back at the shuttle they gathered the 20 remaining members of the company around them, and explained what had happened.
“This is for someone who died today doing good work,” said Battrod, and tapped in the activation code. The charges around the war machine detonated, and then the ones at the mining base.
The Invardii war machine simply disappeared. A white bubble formed around it before the bubble imploded on itself. A grey ash was all that was left on the ground.
Moments later they heard a dull rumble as the charges at the mining base formed the same sudden creations of smoke and fire, displacing fountains of water, and ripped holes in the walls.
The sea rushed in through the holes, and the orange shield above it flickered, but then it held. Hudnee cursed vigorously, but Battrod put a hand on his arm.
“The base automatically sealed off the flooded areas,” he said, “and I was expecting that. The main thing is we keep the pressure on them, and convince them to send Reaper ships to save the base.”
Hudnee nodded resignedly. The next thing was to bring the body of the villager over the strait and bury it next to the shuttle.
The memorial service was short, and heartfelt. It could have been any one them that had died that day defending their way of life, and their right to freedom, and they saluted the sacrifice the villager had made.
“Bravery is what happens when ordinary people do what has to be done, in the cause of something bigger than themselves,” said Hudnee, and the service was over.
A little later something blinked on Battrod’s comms armband, and he took a call from the Javelins above.
“It’s working,” he said to Hudnee, a fierce joy coming into his eyes. “Twenty enemy ships have arrived off the planet. That will be just the first contingent. Pray for many more, my friend, and the chance to destroy them all!”
Hudnee felt the same exultation stir in his heart. The plan was working.
CHAPTER 23
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Ayman Case thought again about the situation at the Barrens, and wondered what his next step should be. Three shuttles had been sent in, and three shuttles had come back – but there had been losses. One of the shuttles had sent in a torpedo unit only to have it stopped by some sort of Invardii war machine.
The torpedo crew had abandoned the unit when it was damaged, and managed to make it back to shore. A fierce firefight had erupted but the machine had been unstoppable, and the shuttle had barely escaped with the crew.
The second shuttle had also sent in one torpedo unit initially, and that unit had disappeared. The shuttle had seen no sign of the many-legged war machines, and there had been no comms feedback from the torpedo crew. Whether the unit had managed to plant its explosives was unknown.
The Hud pilot in charge of the shuttle had decided against detonating the charges. There was always the chance the torpedo crew were still alive, and somewhere near the detonation zone. A second torpedo unit had returned without sighting anything. The shuttle had returned to its Javelin warship, and the area where the torpedo unit had been lost was being closely monitored. If there were any signs of life an extraction team would be sent in immediately.
The last shuttle, which Ayman had sent to collaborate with the Shellport villagers, had been the most successful. It had fielded all three units it carried, and their explosives had torn holes across a wide section of the mining base. Still, he thought soberly, success came at the cost of a life.
On the plus side, there were now twenty enemy ships within the Aqua Regis system, and with any luck there would be more coming. He was confident he could keep the Reaper ships busy until every one of them that the Invardii had sent finally arrived, and the trap could be sprung. In the meantime he had to keep up the pressure on the mining base.
Ayman dispatched 80 of his Javelins to meet the Reaper ships while they were still on the outskirts of the system, and then returned to the most important question of all – what to do about the mining base below him?
He left his chair to pace up and down the long corridor at the back of the bridge. He was running through the scenarios he had been given for the situation. They were a range of suggestions from his best tactical brains, but they all seemed so – ordinary. If he wasn’t careful the attack on the mining base would start to look like a diversion, meant to bring the Reaper ships to the system, and that might suggest a trap to the enemy.
If they were even capable of thinking like that, murmured Ayman to himself. He had to assume all intelligent life would think along similar lines, so the Invardii must have tactical skills something like his own. The problem was they had already shown an emotional side to their thinking – arrogance, independence and a lack of concern for others – that might override any rational decisions. Who knew what they might feel compelled to do.
Then he stopped pacing in mid-stride. That was it! He had thought of a weak point in the mining base defenses, something the Javelins should be able to exploit.
The mining base had fired the mass launcher through the shield, so there must have been some sort of hole in the shield at that time. The pods would have been destroyed against the inside of the shield otherwise. If he could get the mining base to fire the mass launcher again, he would be able to use that moment to do it some real damage.
But before he did that, there was one thing he wanted to do.
Ayman opened a comms link to the three shuttles that had returned from the Barrens. They were being refitted for their next task, and the crews debriefed. Ayman asked to speak to the company from Battrod and Hudnee’s shuttle as soon as their debriefing was finished.
He would ask them to go back and look for the lost torpedo team. It was ultimately their choice whether they would do so, but knowing the people of Hud he didn’t think they would pass up a chance to help some of their own. That is, if the torpedo team were still alive. There was something to be said for bringing their bodies out if they weren’t.
Ayman worked out the details of his plan to get the mass launcher at the mining base to fire again. It wasn’t long before a squadron of Javelins left the safe area above the dome and crossed above the mining site. Not directly overhead, but close enough, Ayman was sure, to trigger the interest of the Invardii.
The crews had disembarked, and the ships had been rigged to run on remote. They were the bait to get the Invardii to fire the mass launcher.
The next pass was a little closer to the trajectory of the pods as they left the mass launcher, and this time the Javelins were more spread out. Even though there were no crews on the ships, Ayman didn’t want to lose any more of the sophisticated pieces of hardware than was necessary.
On the next pass three pods in quick succession left the Barrens and passed through the Javelin formation, hitting one near its stern and damaging the star drive engines. It heeled slowly to one side, and started a long descent toward the planet. Ayman cursed his luck, but he now the navs officers had a fix on the spot where the pods left the shield.
Everything hung on the third pass by the Javelins. Ayman ordered them in from a different direction, but on a track that took them over the centre of the mining base.
Another sequence of pods erupted from the mass launcher, and passed through the top of the shield. They passed between two Javelins in the middle of the formation, and Ayman released the breath he had been holding. At the same moment as the pods emerged from the
shield, the manned Javelins above the mining base struck.
The combined energy weapons of close to a hundred destroyer class Javelins hit the top of the shield. Despite some diffusion from their passage through the atmosphere, dozens of megawatts of pure disruptive power, riding laser beams, punched through the spot on the top of the shield.
A plume of black smoke burst from the top of the dome, and the dome itself flickered and dulled. Moments later the plume was abruptly cut off as the shield stabilised.
Ayman took it philosophically. He hadn’t expected to destroy the mining base in one strike – that would take away incentive for the Invardii to mount a rescue mission – but it was obvious the Javelins had done a lot of damage to the mining base.
As if in some strange response to the latest attack on the mining base, another 32 Reaper ships came out of star drive at the edge of the Aqua Regis system. They would join the firefight between the Javelins and Reaper ships that was already underway far out in the system.
Yes! thought Ayman exultantly, as he watched them come out of star drive. It was still a lot less than the roughly 380 Reaper ships the Invardii had in alliance space, but the numbers were building nicely in the right direction.
Ayman watched the visuals from the alliance ships, relayed by sub-space, as 80 Javelins fought an enemy force now numbering 52 Reaper ships.
With the extraordinary speed of the Hud pilots the Javelins were much more manoeuvrable than anything the Invardii had, but the shields on both sides were equally able to block the attacks of the other. It was – apart from rare losses – a stalemate.
The numbers of enemy ships weren’t high enough yet to call in the Valkrethi, but Ayman was watching the situation closely. It was starting to work out the way the alliance wanted it to.
While Ayman waited for more enemy ships, the shuttle carrying Battrod and Hudnee’s combined teams had left for the Barrens. They’d decided, on a unanimous vote, to make an attempt to find the lost torpedo team, alive or dead.
Rise of the Valkrethi Page 14