Cavalry

by Thorby Rudbek

  Beckie’s laughter had been as contagious as her rage, not just in the usual manner of social or mood influence, but also due to those mental broadcasting abilities. The Marines had suddenly become very happy, too, though an underlying sense of confusion had also been present – after all, they had transitioned from the attack team whose goal had been to capture humanity’s most dangerous enemies, to close colleagues of those same people, in mere moments. Leroy Fraser remarked (some time afterwards, with his ironic sense of understatement) that the attack the NUIT had directed on the hangar in New Leeds had not gone exactly according to plan. He also declared – less obtusely – that the alteration had been the best thing that had happened – for him, the NUIT and all of Earth’s inhabitants.

  “I’ll get our troops busy,” Captain Alder promised in response to Bayne’s directive, noting that this high-profile, quasi-military leader’s mind was still whirling from the startling revelations of the past few minutes – though he was unaware of the details, he maintained a detachment that had only been disturbed briefly by Beckie’s emotional emissions – and the sound of his rather deep voice brought Richard back to the present with a jolt.

  “We’ll join you in a moment; our guys will show you what to use to fill the gaps.” Richard turned to Kirrina and she sank into his arms, her cold-induced shaking perfectly synchronised with his. United by their acknowledgement of the extreme cold they had experienced, together they shivered and shimmered back into the still close-overhanging Citadel to equip themselves more appropriately for working in the arctic conditions. Once equipped, they joined Japanese-American Senichi Arakaki and French-Canadian Mason Charette – the then-current pilots in the two available Aircars – and started the difficult task of building a replacement framework on which to mount a new covering, and re-securing any loose panels in the remains of the roof. Several other recently acquired ex-military personnel had shimmered up from the ‘basement’, bringing tools and Gravity Inducers to aid in the repairs.

  At ground level, Captain Alder got the Marines to step up to the task at once. Chelsea Buchanan, one of the upper GAF selected by Walt and Beckie in Boston, took command of ground level repairs. She used the Marine ‘muscle’ to remove the most buckled panels at the rocket impact points, sometimes using an Arshonnan laser pistol to trim the crumpled parts free, and got them to help Frank Attenburgh and Carter Chella – ex-military flight crew – to replace these scrapped parts with materials which they had brought up from ‘below’, so as to plug the holes so formed.

  “I’m Walt Konig, GAF President. Come with me!” Walt had come up from the basement mere seconds after the confrontation was over, aware, from a brief mental ‘note’ directed to him by Kirrina, that the antagonistic force had been re-designated, redirected and repurposed. He had unerringly located Ed as the chief architect of the destruction and discerned that the attack, which had ended as abruptly as it had started, had now moved to a GAF / Marine restoration mode. He took the three NUIT members into his office, which had fortunately not been damaged, intending to take the opportunity to question the Chief of NUIT as they moved into the shelter and warmth.

  Once inside, the threesome watched as the immense ebony-black ship came back into the hangar, this time through the now fully opened aircraft/airship doors, and shimmered out of sight into the basement, this latter event bringing an expression of bemused astonishment to the faces of the NUIT team members, much to Konig’s scarcely hidden amusement.

  “That panel over there can be reused! It’s not too badly damaged. Bring it down and we’ll give it to Mason.” Abner Sharif, an Egyptian by birth but American by passport, another of the upper GAF team hired by Walt and Beckie in Boston, directed two Marines to bring a section of roofing down from the tail of a partially completed helicopter, where it had fallen and wedged.

  Other, lower GAF personnel, helped by members of their eager New Leeds refugee families, shimmered into view from below, bringing some hastily modified Structural Protection Field Generators that had been tuned to a low power, long-range setting so as to give a field capable of shutting out the wind and weather. This proved very necessary, as the snow began to fall more heavily again, but the presence of the flakes, in turn, simplified the process of the fine-tuning of each SPFG’s field alignment, so as to join the Shell-like energy field onto the broken edges of the original structure.

  “Woah! You can generate a kind of shield?” Leroy leaned against the office window to cut out the glare from the lighting within, looking up at the tattered roof.

  “Yep, it is essentially that, though we call the effect a ‘Shell’,” Konig explained.

  “The floor out there, is it also generated, not really there?” Baynes was still looking at the area where the Patrol Craft One / Citadel combination had so mysteriously vanished, moments earlier.

  “The equipment’s not exactly the same, but the science behind it is.” Walt nodded, happy to limit his explanation to the barest minimum.

  “It must be very strong,” Judy ventured, as she saw a fork-lift truck roll across the vacant space where the huge black vessel had disappeared.

  “Strong enough to have prevented all the damage?” Fraser queried.

  “Yes,” Konig responded, resisting the temptation to continue acerbically: Except we didn’t expect to be attacked by our own military!

  “We acted on the best intelligence.” For once, the Chief of NUIT seemed to have understood the inference of Walter’s curt, one-word reply perfectly.

  Konig grinned wryly and shook his head as he thought about the sledge-hammer-like response epitomised by the Patrol Craft’s roof-destroying arrival above the comparatively feeble helicopter-transported attack force. “Karen must have moved on from that – as evidenced by the fact that you’re still alive – so let’s let it drop, shall we?”

  “Is it a good idea to be using so much power, just to seal off the walls and roof?” Judy asked Walt, after a couple of minutes of awkward silence.

  “Well, we don’t have limitless power, but surprisingly, these devices don’t use a great amount, and once our people and those Marines patch up the holes in the walls and get the helicopters inside the hangar, we can close these big doors, and …”

  “That’s not what I mean,” Brisson interrupted gently. “I’m thinking about the Narlavs, won’t they be able to detect this energy?”

  Walt looked at her closely. “What do you know about Narlavs?”

  “You didn’t hear?”

  Konig’s attempt to maintain a cryptic expression – a poker face – provided a revealing, though wordless answer to Judy’s surprised interjection.

  “Ah yes, you weren’t here when Karen learned about that.” Judy looked very uncomfortable with the circumstances in which she found herself, but forced herself to continue. “We attacked your base here because we concluded that you must be associated with the Narlavs that came to Earth when your Richard and Karen were getting ready to leave it, over a year ago. Before half these people appeared a few minutes ago – from wherever they came – Karen found out what we knew about the Narlavs from the thoughts of Chief Baynes.” She gestured to her boss to continue, as she felt sure he would prefer to be the distributor of such sensitive knowledge. He can’t want to keep this quiet, not now ‘She’ knows it!

  “What?” Konig gripped the table edge, his knuckles showing white. Narlavs have already been here? “The Narlavs know about Earth?” Walt, his face ashen, transferred the focus of his penetrating gaze to Ed and switched to his most intent listening mode.

  “There was a huge ship – it damaged a ‘nuke’ sub. The Narlavs in it kidnapped Isaac Hardy, a nuclear physicist.” The Commander of the NUIT and the de facto coordinator of the military force responsible for the damage now being repaired explained how the Narlavs had taken Isaac and his companions to Mars and how Professor Hardy, his wife and his friend Terrance Stadt had eventually escaped and incredibly had managed to make the return journey across the vast vacuum of space betw
een Mars and Earth, travelling in a very imaginatively modified storage module. “But before the Hardys and their friends got away they found out that the Narlavs were planning on coming back with an invasion fleet. We’ve been watching for signs of their return, and we know now that we’ve had several, including the mysterious disappearance of the prototype spacecraft we built, using technology the Professor and the other escapees used to travel back to Earth, when it went on a proving flight around the Moon about three months ago – and of course the sudden drop in solar energy.”

  “And this means that the Narlavs are here – somewhere – right now?”

  “If by ‘here’ you’re meaning on Earth, then no. Actually we think they’re based on the far side of the Moon,” Leroy stated drolly, sounding like this should be a great relief to the alternative. “That’s why Harry and Kevin never came back. The Narlavs are hidden, waiting.”

  Walt clenched his teeth.

  “There was a human slave with Professor Hardy on Mars and he rebelled against the Narlavs, helped the Hardys.” Judy added the component of the story relating to Latt, explaining how important he was to their plans to build a defence fleet and how the prototype was the start of that effort. She kept her interjection short, though inwardly she was consumed by her desperate desire to know for certain that her fiancé was safe.

  “You are building a defence fleet, too?” Walt had not missed this revelation and he managed a slight grin at this news. “How many ships have you made?”

  “The point isn’t how many, though we intend to make thousands; we are not very far along,” Ed interjected, before either of his NUIT teammates could respond, not wanting to explain that at this point that they had somehow vaporised their first power unit and an impressive portion of the Nevada desert, barely avoiding the ‘elimination’ of Professor Hardy, too, and that the loss of their first prototype vessel and two valuable experts had left them with no working craft at all and only a single vessel – still unassembled – under development. And that craft, or at least the next prototype Eliminator reactor, was on its way to the old weapons testing range at the Nevada National Security Site – though it’s probably snowed under by now, like everything else. “The point is that ‘They’ are already here. We think – no – we’re certain that this ‘cold’ is their secret weapon, designed to wipe out much of humanity. What Judy is worried about is that they may be able to detect this decidedly non-twenty-first century use of power.” He raised his hands again, gesturing at the snow vaporising along the outward surface of the otherwise invisible energy fields holding out the storm, in the patch where the hangar roof had previously performed that function.

  “Interesting idea.” Walt got the point, and hit a button on his desk phone. “Kirrina, Richard?” Obviously the desk-set was not merely equipped with standard telephone technology, though it had the appearance of such a mundane device. “You need to rebuild the roofing on the top of the S.P.F. ‘asap’. I just learned what Chief Baynes told you, and Ms. Brisson thinks there’s a chance we may be discovered by these Narlavs of theirs if we keep these Shell energy fields going.”

  A howling, whistling sound burst forth from the speaker.

  “We… have considered that,” Richard shouted, though it was not really true. The young Fletcher knew of no such detection equipment available to the Fepniners, and Paranak had confirmed on several occasions that the Narlav scanners were at best equally limited and in practice invariably somewhat less effective than their Arshonnan counterparts. “We have panels remounted over most of the area already. Hank, keep an eye on that end, will you? I only have one hand on it! Walt, we’ll soon have the roof re-covered and secured.” Richard’s voice was barely intelligible over the noise of the resurgent storm – he did not bother to waste any energy on contradiction, being focused on the repairs. “We’ll be back inside shortly.”

  “We have strapped Hybralloy supports into the existing roof interior. It won’t look pretty but it will be plenty strong enough to withstand the winds,” Kirrina further explained, her voice clear from her now-sheltered location inside the high roof, perched on the roof of Seagull. She perceived likewise that any enlightenment could – and would – have to wait. “Some of the S.P.F.G.s covering the walls have already been powered down, the rest will be in minutes. Kirrina, or Karen, if you prefer… Out!”

  The NUIT crew looked at each other, clearly impressed by the competency of the organisation they had uncovered in their misguided and failed attempt at an ambush.

  “Looks like the Marines are cleaning up good, too!” Walt commented, aware of the discomfiture levels in his office, trying to deal out compliments, attempting to build bridges, simultaneous to his own, barely commenced process of reconciling the stupidity of the attack – from his perspective – with the new spirit of cooperation that had just been born, seemingly full-grown, and the contrasting, devastating discovery that the enemy was ‘at the gate’.

  Sure enough, within minutes the two Apache attack helicopters and three Twin Huey troop carriers were being manhandled into the hangar with the aid of the Aircars. The NUIT team continued to watch, comfortable in Walt’s warm office, and it was not long before the now unneeded aircraft were parked neatly in the space around the hidden entrance to the ‘basement’. The clean-up crew left that area empty – in fact, none of the invasion force seemed to be walking over it, afraid, perhaps that they would shimmer and disappear, to who-knows-where.

  Walt observed the extra storage space being used and noted wryly that they would still need to remove several of these conventional aircraft if Citadel needed to exit in the future. That is, without using our unofficial ‘emergency exit’ and smashing the roof all to pieces again!

  Chapter Two

  Have we now become no different than those Narlavs of so long ago? – Batamon

  “Batamon! Get Kuson!” Pilot Esten shouted, wishing she could transmit like her boyfriend could. There, before her, lay the lovely, verdant Frontier Post Nine, floating like a green tennis ball against the deep emptiness of inter-galactic space, after the customary swirling of the meagre star-field into reality from the grey nothingness of the nth dimensional trip back from Outpost Eleven. What made her call out, however, was the arrowhead-shaped vessel which was progressing across the enticing vision of the nearby planet, entirely too close for comfort.

  Batamon, who had been standing at the back of the Control Centre, leaped across the intervening space and flopped into the chair that had been placed slightly behind the pilot’s seat, his hand automatically reaching for her neck as he ‘reached out’ to the other Scout. Kuson! Where are you?

  Three mega-dap to port… We are cutting across in front of you. Should block this Pakak before it can change course; fortunately we did have a few seconds of inherent advanced notice. The response from his fellow-Empowered communications advisor on PC Canvil was clear and strong. There are two ‘local’ Patrol Cruiser IIs on the tail of that craft… if it diverts in an attempt to get to you, they will be in range of it in moments.

  “Take us ‘south’, Esten!” Captain Rendan directed, indicating a relative move ‘down’ from the perspective of their orientation. “That Pakak looks like it can’t resist us.” Situation summaries were ‘queued’ on the communications system – timely broadcasts from the defending ships, transmitted in the moments since their arrival, but which Rendan felt he could not afford at this crucial moment to invest the time to review. With Patrol Cruiser Canvil close by, he was sure he should proceed on intuition. What would Richard have called it? They are riding shotgun for us – that’s it!

  “Confirmed, Captain.” Navigator Jenik had checked her displays and found a shift in the data from the unanticipated adversary. She flipped back her glossy brown hair as she continued to study her instruments, impressed by the way in which her Captain had been able to detect this subtle shift in course almost before her instruments had measured it. “There’s a third Cruiser closing from … ‘south’…” Here she found her
attention torn from the data as her Captain’s astoundingly good choice was confirmed by the local defender traffic.

  “Get that Shell system up!” Rendan’s sharp response brought Jenik back to full attention, though a rare blush flashed briefly across her lovely face.

  “It’s coming, sir. Three Shells… at ninety eight percent,” the Navigator confirmed a moment later. “No other Pakak within short range scanner detection limits.”

  “Thanks, Jenik.” The Captain was watching the forward viewscreen intently. “How long before we touch the atmosphere?”

  “Less than a hemal, now.”

  We have engaged the Pakak! Kuson sent. It is veering off ‘north’. Its Shells must be half gone by now, the other two Cruisers have shot from long range and hit it at least once.

  Batamon verbally passed this information on to the crew – of course, Esten had received it immediately, due to their continuing physical contact – and Jenik displayed a blurry, maximum range rendering of the departing craft on a secondary display as it slipped through the defenders and ‘dimensioned out’. Just after the well-timed disappearance, the last purple bolt slipped past its previous location on its way into the vast system vacuum ‘space’, where it would eventually dissipate to nothingness.

  Fepnine, now looking more like a fuzzy basketball, approached rapidly, and Esten began adjusting the Drive levers to reduce their descent rate.

  Captain Rendan played his messages, impressed with both the intelligence in them and the brevity of the reports. He looked around the Control Centre, catching the attention of the command crew. “Things have changed since we left… and not for the better.”

  Keep close, please… Bata, Esten implored her very dear friend, wanting him to stay in contact, using her diminutive version of his name, as she did in private. Does Kuson say our companions are coming down with us? I hope they don’t try to ‘get’ that Pakak. She had been concentrating on the main forward view and had not observed the enemy’s retreat.