Invardii Box Set 2 Page 10

  The inhabitants of RockHaven had quickly realized they had a FrereSanni, an important member of ParapSanni’s new government, in their midst. Showing the utmost concern for his well-being, they soon had AldSanni extracted from the shuttle and moving along the docks. A short time later he was surrounded by machines in the village’s medical facility.

  Fedic looked at his surroundings as he followed the transfer party along the docks. RockHaven had been built to make the most of the sea, and was mostly built into the cliffs behind the docks – another reason, perhaps, that Invardii ground ships had overlooked the place in their rampage across the planet.

  The inhabitants were well supplied with water craft, and had retrieved the shuttle under cover of darkness. They’d thought it was a satellite knocked out of orbit by the Reaper ships, and they wanted the technology inside it. There was already a shortage of parts as machines malfunctioned for reasons of age or accident, and scavenging for machinery was now an important occupation for the refugee Sumerians.

  Once he saw that AldSanni was in good hands, Fedic made arrangements to get the shuttle under cover. The flatbed shifted it into one of the many caverns along the waterfront, and connected to the village’s power supply. He watched with a sense of relief as it ran through its start up routines without a hitch. Despite its rough treatment, none of the sensitive electronics on board seemed to have suffered.

  There were two things in particular the shuttle would now allow him to do. First up he would be able to hand out linguist earpieces and have the shuttle comm systems do the translating. He was getting tired of miming what he wanted to the Sumerians, or getting AldSanni to explain.

  Secondly, the shuttle gave him sub-space capabilities again, and that meant he could report in to Cordez. Normal electromagnetic communication wouldn’t be much good while the shuttle was surrounded by rock, and it was also bound by the speed of light. Neither of these difficulties was a limitation for the shuttle’s sub-space system.

  Once he had done that, the mission would have to wait. It was a joint mission, and until AldSanni was able to travel, there was no point in setting off across the planet.

  Later that day AldSanni asked for the leaders of RockHaven to assemble in the room where he lay hooked up to a number of machines. Fedic got the invitation as well. When they were all gathered, AldSanni felt his first task was to get the full story of the attack on Uruk from the survivors themselves.

  “The early days were the worst,” said RakBrahmad, the government representative for the area before civilization collapsed.

  “There was nothing left that could fly, and all the ground transport systems had been put out of action. The smoke and dust in the air made short-range communications very difficult, and all the satellites for long-range communication had been blasted out of the sky. But the most difficult thing to deal with was our own people.”

  He paused, and Fedic could see that this still haunted him.

  “Those that managed to escape from the cities before they were destroyed by the ground ships were unprepared for life in the countryside. Those areas that still had organization and supplies sent out search parties when we realized what was going on, but the refugees from the cities only lasted a few days without supplies or shelter.

  “We managed to save quite a few at the start, but after ten days we weren’t finding any more still alive.” He stopped speaking, and the room felt heavy under the uncomfortable silence.

  “I can’t imagine what the losses have been, what percentage of the population.”

  “This has been a great loss to the Sumerian people,” said AldSanni, speaking stiffly, and very formally. This must be what they expect of him at a time like this, thought Fedic.

  “All around the empire, our people know of your loss. The grief you feel is shared by all.”

  There was a long moment’s silence, then AldSanni motioned for RakBrahmad to continue.

  “The places that escaped the worst effects of the Invardii onslaught were outposts,” the local leader continued. “Outlying industries with small settlements, resort villages, research stations, those sorts of places. They appear to be still functioning, but they will run out of supplies soon, if they haven’t already, and essential services will be shutting down.”

  “Yes,” said AldSanni, stepping up to his role as the nearest thing to government the planet now had, “and that is where we will start our work. As soon as I am able to travel.”

  He looked at Fedic, who nodded slowly. The planet was a mess all right, but the sooner they made it an organized mess, the better it would be for every Sumerian still alive on it.

  CHAPTER 16

  ________________

  AldSanni lumbered along the rocky foreshore of RockHaven, still favoring the leg he had broken during the descent of the shuttle. He waved away one of the medical attendants, who was trying to help him.

  Fedic walked behind, more intent on the sounds and smells of his surroundings than on AldSanni’s progress. Their survival might depend on what saw and heard during their time on this alien planet. They would be leaving soon to make contact with the pockets of refugees who had managed to hang on around the devastated planet, and he needed to be ready for the journey.

  AldSanni’s ‘deflated’ leg had healed quickly, but the knee joint had been crushed in the accident and that was proving more difficult to mend. For the moment the medical team at RockHaven had built a mechanical knee around his damaged one, bypassing the problem.

  It wasn’t ideal, but it would have to do for now. He would have a complete reconstruction after the mission, when he got to one of the Sumerian colony worlds, and got better medical help.

  The first destination for their mission would be a Lyceum bunker in Ba’Regan, the capital city of Uruk. The Lyceum brothers were a school of thought that was unusual for Sumerian ways of thinking. They tried to think outside the conventional, and often caste-bound, Sumerian way of life. They had shone as social historians, and had anticipated a collapse of the Sumerian empire due to the arrival of new ideas from Earth.

  Another change they had predicted was the introduction of civilizations without star drive, such as the Mersa, into the milieu of the Spiral Arm. The Sumerian mainstream couldn’t see this ever happening, but they didn’t know about the Mersa presence at Prometheus yet.

  The Lyceum brothers had also predicted a period of instability in the Sumerian empire until a more comprehensive, and equal, form of government developed. In preparation for this they’d built a number of bunkers around Uruk. This was a far sighted act, since they didn’t know when in the next century or so it would occur.

  Despite their successes in some areas, the Lyceum brothers had not anticipated the arrival of the Invardii. Despite that, the bunkers would now prove very useful for AldSanni’s planned resistance. Fedic hoped the brothers had holed up in the bunker when the Invardii ground ships arrived. With any luck there would be a colony of survivors there that was in better shape than most of the others.

  From the Ba’Regan base, the network of bunkers could be turned into the communications network AldSanni hoped for. The long-term goal was to prepare the Sumerian refugees for a second evacuation, when Earth and Sumerian forces were strong enough to attempt the task.

  During the afternoon Aldsanni decided they had wasted enough time on his recovery, and he would be fit enough to travel the following day. Fedic took him at his word, and next morning a small party left RockHaven for Ba’Regan.

  They would have landed closer to the Sumerian capital if things hadn’t gone wrong with the descent and the bypass. Though the distance to Ba’Regan wasn’t that far in a straight line, there were no roads to speak of. The party would be limited to compass navigation or walking tracks. With the Sumerian satellites blasted out of the sky during the invasion, the positional functions on the recording tablets were useless.

  Fortunately, the Sumerians at RockHaven had taken to committing details of the countryside, and tracks they used often,
to paper. They’d covered a lot of ground as they searched for survivors in the first weeks after the invasion. Fedic unfolded a rough map of the area with amusement. He had only ever seen such an ancient data storage system as a holographic representation in a museum.

  The RockHaven community offered the two of them the services of some scouts who had traveled widely in the early days. They would have some useful experience, decided Fedic, as he accepted their help.

  He wondered how large the group should be. Larger was always slower. AldSanni wouldn’t be able to travel at a normal speed, but he wouldn’t be required to carry anything.

  The map showed Fedic there were a good few walking tracks across the countryside, but they rarely ran directly toward Ba’Regan. There would be occasional times when the party traveled cross-country between the walking tracks. His trainers had called that ‘bush bashing’ during his early years as a stealth operative.

  Fedic pursed his lips thoughtfully. A week of the short Uruk days should take them from RockHaven to Ba’Regan comfortably.

  That is, a week if there weren’t any problems, and the first problem occurred on the morning of the second day.

  There was something wrong, and Fedic couldn’t put his finger on it. The Sumerians had wiped the land masses clean of predators after they clambered out onto land for the first time. Their genetic transformation from sea-dwellers to land-dwellers must have left them with a mistrust of all land predators, much as Earth people feared sharks in the sea, reasoned Fedic.

  It had been an unfortunate slaughter, leaving few creatures other than the smaller predators and most of the herbivores. Yet Fedic could feel the unblinking gaze of something much bigger on him, and it was something that was not afraid of him. It felt like a solitary predator at the top of its food chain, and that meant it would be fast, and it would be strong.

  The strange little birds of the planet, more bat than feathered songbird, had not stopped their activity in the trees, which was surprising. If they didn’t recognize the threat, it was likely the predator wasn’t from this planet. It was confusing, but the danger signals wouldn’t go away.

  Every so often Fedic’s shoulders would crawl with goose bumps, and he could sense in what direction the creature lay. He could almost feel it deciding when, and where, it would attack. It was somewhere under the tall, leafy trees, shadowing them silently, and it was concentrating on him. It recognized the greatest threat in the group, and it would try to take him down first. It would pick the others off in a day or two, when it got hungry again.

  Fedic decided it would be best if he faced the attack on his own. AldSanni and the Sumerian scouts were too clumsy out in the wild, and despite being armed would be more of a danger than a help.

  He motioned them back, and tapped his utility belt. At the agreed signal, the scouts took out their energy weapons. AldSanni took out the short projectile weapon Fedic had given him. Once the others were a stone’s throw behind him, Fedic felt better. The chances of them shooting each other, or him, were greatly reduced.

  Fedic deliberately made more noise, and wandered off the faint trail now and then. He was trying to make himself more of a target, and it should bring the predator, whatever it was, onto him. Predator behavior targeted an animal separated from the herd, and that was what Fedic was doing, separating himself from the herd.

  He could feel the creature’s intensified interest. It took real control to stop himself from looking back at the trees on his left, where he knew it was stalking him.

  Then it was gone. The removal of its presence was like a lifted weight. Fedic’s mind spun as he tried to make sense of the sudden change. Nothing had happened to scare it off, but he had the feeling it was behind him, and moving away.

  The others! It was going to attack AldSanni and the others. Perhaps it saw them as easy prey while the most dangerous member of the herd was absent.

  Fedic turned and sprinted back along the rough track. He rounded a bend as something lithe and reptilian landed on the back of one of the Sumerian scouts, knocking him to the ground. AldSanni fired blindly above it, scared of hitting one of the others.

  Startled, it leaped for the nearest tree trunk, and disappeared into the branches above. Fedic couldn’t believe how quick it was. There were a few moments of rustling as it transferred from tree to tree, and then the long, sinuous shape was gone.

  Fedic moved slowly to where the fallen Sumerian lay. He couldn’t feel the presence of the creature any more, but he was alert for another attack. The scouts were already attending to their injured comrade on the ground. There were long gashes in the clothing on his back, and a deep bite mark on one shoulder. Teeth and claws, thought Fedic. Razor sharp to do that much damage. Then the Sumerian was sedated, and his shoulder and ribs were being bound.

  Fedic took AldSanni aside.

  “What in all the many hells of all the worlds was that!” he growled. AldSanni and the others had assured him there were no dangerous land animals in this area – or elsewhere on the planet.

  AldSanni seem perplexed.

  “I don’t know,” he said. He swayed his upper body in the gesture Fedic had come to know as the equivalent of a shrug. “But I can guess. There were exotic game parks near Ba’Regan at one time. I thought they had all been closed down.”

  He glanced at Fedic to check that the linguist earpiece had made a sensible translation of his words. Fedic nodded, so he continued.

  “These were compounds where alien species could be seen living together, often predators with prey. Sumerians from the city paid to fly over the area on soundproof viewing platforms, and see the animals ‘in the wild’ as it were.”

  Fedic digested this. When it was clear AldSanni had no more to add he commented sharply, “Well, some of those creatures weren’t destroyed or shipped out. Maybe juveniles escaped, but you’ve got at least one adult out here now. We can’t assume the countryside is a safe place anymore.

  “How many of those things are there likely to be?”

  Again, Aldsanni swayed his body. “I don’t know,” he said. “I thought the parks had been closed down properly. There were several different types of top predator contained in them, and some were worse killers than the one we saw.”

  Fedic was fuming. Information was everything, and he hadn’t been given vital information.

  CHAPTER 17

  ________________

  Fedic had to change his plans, and change them quickly. The presence of the predatory creatures from the game parks was going to make things a lot more difficult. He had no intention of turning back. They had to get to Ba’Regan and contact the Lyceum brothers at the bunker, regardless. But the creatures were going to make the journey much more dangerous.

  He called a halt until he could assess how well the wounded Sumerian could move. Fedic took the time to re-think his strategies. If he was to get any sleep at nights, the little party would need to be holed up somewhere that could be defended by a couple of untrained Sumerians with energy weapons.

  The little party was passing abandoned Sumerian homes from time to time, and maybe they could use those. The houses were lumpy affairs set in compounds, reachable by air only. Turning them into a defensible position wouldn’t be much of a problem. It was more the thought of alien predators prowling around them at night that was disquieting.

  Fedic began to wish he had brought more of his arsenal with him, especially the perimeter stations with their alarms and automated energy weapons. He had decided against it because the party didn’t have the man or machine power to carry much more than the basics.

  Over the next few days the wounded Sumerian was able to keep going on stimulants and determination, and the party found safe places to hole up at night. The reptilian predator did not want to give up its intended meal, and it followed them for two more days. Once or twice Fedic heard the softest rustle as it maneuvered its way through the trees on either side of them.

  When they reached more open ground the creature disappeared al
together, but it returned when there was enough forest cover to keep it concealed. Once or twice Fedic put a shot through foliage overhanging the track as a precautionary measure. In the end the party won free of the lizard beast. Fedic couldn’t feel its presence any more, and he knew they were safe. At least they were safe from this particular piece of alien nastiness.

  On the eighth day they could see the outskirts of Ba’Regan. They could also see Invardii activity above the capital city. Reaper ships glowed orange on the edge of the atmosphere, and sleek ground ships came and went around the city.

  “Tell me more about the underground system,” said Fedic, as they sheltered in one of the last of the country houses.

  “It’s no good to us,” said AldSanni. “The ground ships blew out all the power stations in the first wave. None of the pods will work.”

  “Maybe,” said Fedic, “but the lines themselves are still open. We’ll just have to walk in along them.”

  AldSanni considered this, and decided it was possible. Where did this little Human with his strange skills, so much smaller than him and his fellow Sumerians, get these ideas?

  The travelers waited until nightfall to cross to the line of bulges and angled projections which designated the outermost Sumerian dwellings. Then they made their way through the shadowed streets to the nearest underground station.

  The station appeared to be part of a ring line around the outside of the city. A ground ship blast had caved in the pod line to their right, so they followed the overhead lines to their left. The Sumerian population had abandoned the pods when the power went down, and the safety over-ride had cut each one loose from the overhead lines. It was a strange experience climbing over and around the pale white cocoons, lying where they had fallen in the narrow alleyways.