Cavalry

by Thorby Rudbek

  He went back into the cottage and found that incredibly, Terry was still conscious. The grievously wounded man whispered just three words: “Call the Aircars.” Then he slumped sideways.

  The two Georges blazed their way down a side street, leaving it littered with bodies. The blood lust seemed to take them onwards, without any conscious effort. They kept shouting to each other, announcing their tallies – just estimated to the nearest five, as they had no time to count accurately – as they continued to slaughter the enemy troops. At a hundred and seventy and a hundred and thirty-five respectively, both were sliced badly, and fell, a few feet apart. George Pendle was face down and could not move, but Paul George was lying sideways and saw a fluffy-coated alien approach his companion. The Narlav warrior aimed casually and lasered his friend’s head into nothingness. Paul tried to move his own weapon, his blood pouring rapidly forth from the lasered gouges in his body, but his much-vaunted strength was gone. Then he saw the Narlav turn towards him. He stared into the alien eyes until the blinding light from the laser abruptly ended his consciousness.

  Ruth and Isaac could see the laser light from countless Narlav weapons, cutting a tunnel into the ground to pass downwards in front, under and beyond the Mega-hemi-Shell field protecting the hangar and the concealed construction chamber below it. Three other squads were scattered around the perimeter of their inelegant but practical solution to the barrier, ready to respond to any attempt to interfere with this action, and many other squads could be seen, moving nearer to join this force.

  “We have to stop them!” Isaac exclaimed, moving closer to the frosted, cobwebbed window of the old barn.

  “No!” Ruth grabbed his arm, her fear suddenly gone, and her mind amazingly clear. “You’ll just get yourself killed, and hardly make a dent in their forces.” She pulled him back, pointing to the flooring, and found an area where the soil was very dry. She pointed again at the spot. “I’ll stay here. You fire through the cracks in the wall, moving from the far end, back towards here. By the time you get here, I’ll have a hole drilled big and deep enough so we can both drop into it.”

  Isaac looked at her, amazed. “It might even work.” He kissed her and ran down the long structure to begin his work of destruction.

  Ruth waited until she heard his weapon start to discharge, then she opened up with two lasers at once, finding that she could not really keep her eyes open because of the glare. She stopped after a full minute, and the first thing she saw was that the end of her right boot was missing, as were, presumably, most of her right toes. The hole in front of her was dark, and her foot did not hurt at all – until she jumped.

  Isaac fell on top of her, and blinding rods of laser light crackled above their heads, setting the back wall of the barn on fire. He managed to look at her foot in the light from the burning wood, and incredibly they both started to laugh as he showed her the hole in his jacket from the laser beam that somehow had not touched his body, and the other hole, in the hood of his winter coat, from a laser beam that had removed a huge swathe of his hair.

  “Good idea!” He whispered in her ear. “But what do we do now?”

  She stuck her head up and looked through one of the many holes now present in the old barn walls. “Time to pick off a few more!”

  Isaac joined her, and he could see that the tunnel was now filling with warriors, and that they would presumably be bursting out on the other side, any moment. He started to fire short bursts into the massed Narlav troops, causing several to drop, but then they could see a number fanning out to find the source of the laser fire. Ruth got a couple more, but then the edge of the hole was hit, and both of them were momentarily blinded by flying fragments of earth or wood, forcing them to drop back down into temporary safety.

  While they were briefly incapacitated, Magic Wagon and Stork flew past, their laser armaments blazing, and Seagull appeared on the inside of the solitary hemispherical Shell, poised in position to intercept the Narlavs tunnelling though. As the first Narlav laser beams burst up from the ground, the SPF around Seagull powered up and her lasers generously finished off the tunnel for the invaders, then contrarily continued to vaporise the troops now trapped within it.

  The supply of Narlav warriors seemed to be inexhaustible; more and more flooded the area and directed their massed firepower at the Aircars, causing the SPF to gleam and glisten.

  Tony Holt crept around the corner, reluctantly leaving the mortally wounded Terry Stadt, and saw the shimmering in the distance as the Aircars were targeted, hit by multiple laser beams. He knew that the single SPF that protected each Aircar was not designed for such a load, and worried about the fate of the crews, once the SPF failed.

  As if the occupants had heard him, the three Aircars retreated as fast as they had come, but then the largest one returned, flying low and fast, catching the Narlavs by surprise, it would seem, as no weapons were directed towards it. The side doors on Magic Wagon opened, the SPF faded, and some kind of barrel-shaped container was pushed out by the crew inside.

  Tony held his breath and almost cheered when he saw the SPF shimmer back on, just as the Narlavs found their target again. Magic Wagon flew off again and the dropped object started to roll down into the excavation under the hangar’s protective, hemi-spherical Shell, disappearing from his view. Holt took careful aim at the probable resting place of the container and fired a short pulse at it, grinning as – his aim true – the contents burst into a mass of flame, blocking the opening, at least for a while.

  Lasers swung in his direction and he ran back around the building, wondering if he would make it before they sliced him to pieces. The corner of the wall collapsed on him, breaking his left leg in two places, and yet somehow he managed to crawl back to Terry.

  The entrepreneur looked like a smashed doll.

  “Don’t die!” Tony pleaded in a choked whisper. He checked for a pulse and wasn’t sure if there was one. Stadt lay, perfectly still, on a large patch of blood-soaked snow, looking very, very dead.

  “Kirrina to Latt and Amber,” she called out from the almost depleted reserve Macral bank at the back of the Control Room, pleased that the ventilation system had cleared the smoke from the air – she was using the conventional communications system instead of her mental link with Beckie, as the range between their ships was still too great for that. “According to our scanners, there are no more Warrnam in detector range, what is your status?”

  “Ship still without Shell fields, but Drive restored, thanks to Paranak,” Amber called back brightly from PC Thirteen. “Control Room crew is badly injured; I’m working on the Medic now.”

  “Our Drive is too badly damaged for me to repair,” Latt responded wearily from PC Nine. “We need a tow.”

  Walt shimmered out of the Drive chamber, the blackened spare Thurgidern he was cradling in his arms confirming Latt’s statement; he nodded in agreement as he realised what had just been said. Judy searched through previously rejected Macrals, looking for less damaged ones that might respond to her talented touch and provide some limited operability to crucial ship systems. She looked with concern at Latt, aware that he had been hit by a falling overhead sensor bank at one desperate point in their battles, and she checked his eyes for signs of concussion. Time for the Medic, if we can get it to function!

  “Paranak, head over to PC Nine and assist Latt, Judy and Walt; I’m hoping that their Craft can be repaired, with your assistance,” Richard directed from his crawlspace under the control panels, thinking how many ships they had lost already, and how they should keep this one if at all possible, even if it might take weeks to fix it.

  “You’ll have to talk to the Captain,” Paranak responded as he used one of the few remaining serviceable instrument clusters to confirm that the Drive was fully functional. “I’m only the acting ship’s Engineer.”

  “Right!” Richard grinned as he caught the full meaning behind this statement and realised that his wife had previously addressed this. “Captain Amber, once you ha
ve put PC Nine into a safe orbit, take the crew with you, head back to New Leeds and join the battle against the Narlav ground forces there.”

  “I’ll get my acting Engineer to fix us some Shells before we get there!” Amber (or ‘Captain Amber’, as she now fiercely confirmed to herself) responded, and the smile on her face came over so very clearly in the tone of her voice. “PC Thirteen, on our way!”

  “When you get to Latt’s ship…” Karen shook her head, as she realised that any anger that might have been present in the teenager’s mind about their failed attempt to leave her behind, was now wiped out by her accomplishments in the space-based share of the battle for Earth. “I suggest you take your ‘injured’ over and use the Medic before you nudge it into a parking orbit and head back to Earth.” Her dimples appeared as she looked over at her husband, and acknowledged with him that something good had happened, despite their carefully laid plans and good intentions.

  “Good idea,” Judy commented from the now mostly-derelict PC Nine. “Our Medic – powered by our reserve batteries – should be able to restore them by the time we meet, if they are still alive, or even a little afterwards, if they have only recently expired.”

  “Just do what you can.” Richard hoped that at least some of that US air force crew would survive long enough to be restored. He wondered when Amber would find out about her uncle, but knew that the task still ahead of her was crucial to the lives of the defenders on Earth. She mustn’t learn about it now. “PCs Eight and Sixteen,” Richard continued, after a heaving intake of breath, “there is still one task left for us to accomplish, on the far side of the Moon. We must neutralise the forces that defend the Mecuba base and stop the dust!” Richard tried to encourage the crews of the other two still functional craft, providing his estimation of the Narlav force remaining. “We can expect another three Warrnam to be stationed there, so get your full Shells back up quickly.” He took a handful of Macral from Kirrina as he spoke and knelt down by the Shell-generating module to follow his own advice.

  “They probably have some kind of early warning system, like we created for Earth, so we are going to try to come in underneath it. This means flying very low, so stay sharp!” Kirrina took them Moon-wards as fast as she could, and soon their approach to the lunar surface was more like an impending meteorite strike, straight down in the centre of the nearside, where the terminator between night and day divided the Moon into a ‘quarter’. At the last possible moment, or so it seemed, she brought them out of their dive and converted to horizontal mode. Soon they were silently drifting above the sharply defined mountain peaks, illuminated by the sun now directly ahead of them. Kirrina had in fact started their low orbit with several kilometres between them and the rugged surface, to allow the other pilots time to get used to the black–white contrasting views of shadowed and sunlit, hard-vacuum defined surfaces. Her intention was to gradually take the ships lower, so that, by the time they had progressed around to the Farside, they would be skimming their craft just metres from the jagged rocks, and their approach would be hidden from the Narlav base, thought to be in crater Tsiolkovsky, until they were just seconds away from it.

  ***

  Kevin had watched as the purple and green glints caused monstrous flashes, temporarily blanking out all the displays. Though he could not understand the broadcasts, or the conversation between his two Narlav jailors, he could see that the impacts were increasingly due to purple flashes, and finally, that the flashes stopped altogether. During this time, he had inched backwards, slowly distancing himself from his captors, and intent as they increasingly were on the devastating and unbelievable destruction of their own fleet, they had failed to notice this subtle movement. Finally, he turned remarkably nimbly and ran from the room, realising that his window of opportunity would last only seconds more.

  Moments later, Wintkarn and Crillak turned from the debacle displayed before them and realised their prisoner had fled.

  “The Shaatak ran away! How human. We shall do battle today!” Crillak roared. “I shall find and destroy this feeble creature. You shall prepare to prevent the advancing ships from capturing our Warrnam. One last use of your great engineering skills, my warrior friend!”

  The two Narlavs collected laser rifles, checked the charges and left the ‘Overview’ Chamber, locking the dual entries as they departed, so that Kevin would not be able to return to it.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Dark victory

  Patrol Craft Eight held a loose formation position several hundred metres to the right of Citadel and Kirrina could hear Beckie very clearly due to the enhanced transmission made possible by an ancient Arshonnan technology, combined with the tremendous mental capacities of both the young girl and her older ‘stepsister’.

  The shadows are getting a little shorter. Will we see them before they spot us? Beckie ‘sent’ as their speed seemed to increase, an illusion due to their gradual descent towards the mountaintops slipping past below them. She continued with her repairs after her quick glance up at the viewscreens from her sprawled position on the floor of the Control Room of PC Eight.

  Kirrina responded that they had planned it to work out that way. Let’s hope it does.

  “This is Captain Amber.” The transmission captured her excitement clearly, though some of the recipients were almost out of range, as they circled around the Moon, crossing the slightly variable border between the near and far sides. “I am renouncing control of PC Thirteen, and handing over to Walt. To the defenders in New Leeds, we’ll be there in a moment – hang on!”

  There was no response from those defenders, and the anxiety level of all the Patrol Craft crew members who received these transmissions increased significantly. Richard replied briefly, acknowledging and thanking the young, field-promoted Captain for her message.

  Still, there was no transmission from New Leeds.

  The crews on the three Patrol Craft immediately reassured themselves, as best they could, with the thought that the defenders were probably just too busy to respond. They refused to entertain the thought that the land-based ‘hodgepodge’ force of military and civilian volunteers could have already been defeated.

  Beckie finished her repairs and returned to her seat. She checked her instruments, determining to her surprise that she could no longer detect any Mecuba projectiles.

  “Hey, Mom, do you think my scanner’s broken? I can’t see the Mecuba stuff anymore.”

  Tracy leaned over, then remembered and activated her own display.

  “Tell Kirrina.”

  The words were barely out of Doctor Hawk’s mouth when the young girl blasted forth the message. Unfortunately for the two receivers in Citadel, both the intended one and her less gifted but still sensitive husband, there was only a half kilometre between their respective craft and the volume was therefore reduced very little, making Kirrina’s head thrum briefly and raising Richard’s already throbbing headache up to a new level.

  Kirrina checked her displays as she flew on, using her absent-minded, almost casual piloting skill as she did so, to find that her scanner confirmed this interesting development.

  “I concur,” she ventured, frugal with the spoken word. She leaned over and down and placed a hand on her husband’s forehead, fading the intensity of the pain almost before he had realised it was there. The quick glances exchanged during this ritual were both sombre and tender.

  “They probably turned it off when they launched their attack,” Brad transmitted as he glanced over at the blackness of Citadel to his left, unconsciously and almost entirely ineffectively seeking to mentally direct his message towards the beautiful and fearsome pilot of Arshonnan descent, flawlessly guiding that venerable vessel.

  “Then the other ships may be on their way to Earth, perhaps we’ll miss them…” Richard spoke up from his position on the floor as he slipped another Macral into position.

  There was a period of a few second’s silence, then a slightly distorted voice was heard – it was Walt�
�s:

  “Don’t worry, we confirm the Mecuba is ‘off’, and we have set PC Nine’s communications system on auto-relay to send you the news, repeated every few seconds, if there are any ships out there, sneaking one way ’round the Moon as you head in the other direction. So you’ll know as soon as you come back from the far side, and we’ll hear, of course, from our satellite surveillance, even when we’re down in the ‘murk’ below.”

  “Thanks, Walt. We’ll just concentrate on neutralising the remaining Narlavs at the Mecuba base.” Richard clipped yet another Macral into place as he spoke. “Good luck in New Leeds!”

  Another pause of a few seconds.

  “And you!”

  PC Sixteen’s navigation officer watched her screens intermittently during her otherwise constant work on repairing their defences. She was greatly relieved when her work was completed, and their Patrol Craft was fully functional again.

  “This is PC Sixteen,” a high-pitched, delicate voice announced with great satisfaction. “All systems restored!”

  “Nice work, Pigeon!” Kirrina interjected, knowing how deftly the slim Marine officer worked, and picturing how she would now be clearing up the littered floor and wiping down any burn marks, using the cleaning supplies she had stashed in her Control Room as soon as she had been assigned to that particular craft.

  A moment later Beckie chimed in with the announcement that their ship was also back in optimal condition.

  Richard glanced at the displays, realising that they would soon be at their destination – though of course he could not pin-point this with any great precision, as Crater Tsiolkovsky encompassed a very large area – and that his Shell Fields were still incomplete.