Rise of the Valkrethi Page 6

  “The heat exchanger shaft,” said Serostrina, jumping up from the comms panel and heading for the maintenance room behind them. Ereth followed, trying to get his head around the idea.

  The heat exchanger used the heat difference between the warmer layers under the planet’s rocky mantle and the frozen surface to generate electricity. He soon discovered there was a maintenance shaft wide enough for them to enter but it went straight down, absolutely vertical, and how would they build a top onto the shaft before the Reaper ships destroyed the depot?

  “There,” said Serostrina, pointing to a booster station on the schematics diagram of the shaft. It wasn’t that far down from the top, and it might be a place where they could seal themselves off from above. It would have to be a good seal. The Reaper ships were about to unleash unbridled destruction on the building they were in.

  “We’ll need to be suited up,” said Ereth, thinking of the cold in the shaft, as well as the thin, unbreathable atmosphere. “Everyone, not just those who’re already suited up from the downed shuttle, and we’ll need to break all speed records on this one!”

  Serostrina nodded, and ran to organise the small group of Mersa and handful of Humans who were working to get the depot systems on line.

  Ereth called one of the engineers over, and explained the plan to him.

  “That’s not much of a plan,” said the engineer in disbelief.

  “What do we seal the shaft with?” he continued. “How long will the suits last? How do we stop the air in the shaft from eventually killing us?”

  “I don’t know,” said Ereth. “Just grab everything you think we could possibly use.” He looked the young engineer straight in the eye.

  “I’m relying on you, Sebo. Do you understand?”

  The young man looked back for a moment, then smiled a thin, crooked smile. “Yeah,” he said, nodded briskly once, and departed.

  Sebastian reminded him of himself at that age, thought Ereth. He was so sure of himself on the inside, yet frightened to put up new ideas in case they got shot down.

  This time, though, Sebo needed to hold everything together or they would all just be more statistics in this damn war. Ereth hurried toward the heat exchanger shaft, his vast experience throwing up and discarding ideas to keep them all alive one after the other. Nothing seemed to work, but maybe part of this one, and if he could adapt that one.

  The thin sunlight was already receding from the mountains surrounding the depot. A brilliant flash registered on the outside cameras as a fireball earthed nearby, and Ereth realised they had less time than he’d thought.

  A barrage of explosions followed, and most of the outside cameras went off line. Serostrina examined one of the remaining pictures, a strange montage of dirty whites cut by thin green lines and odd crystalline shapes.

  More explosions followed, but these were more distant, as if the bombardment had moved on to another location. For a moment Ereth felt an irrational hope that the Invardii had for some mad reason of their own decided to leave the depot alone.

  “Avalanche!” said Serostrina, after a moment’s thought. Ereth saw what she meant at once. Somehow the barrage had loosened millennia of ice and snow accumulated on the slopes nearby, and now it lay over the depot. Ereth’s eyes lit up. This would buy them more time!

  “Come on people,” he roared, a lion’s voice for an old man. “It’s life or death, don’t be standing around. Everyone in full suits in two minutes flat and we’re going underground.

  “Now move!”

  The booster station was a place where the shaft widened, though it was still difficult to move about in the bulky surface suits with their faceplates.

  Ereth worked furiously on the panel set into the thick cable running down the length of the shaft. Sebo worked above him, as the others climbed past the two of them three at a time. At least in this section the metal rungs circled half the shaft and helped them down.

  CHAPTER 9

  ________________

  “That should close the isolation doors above the booster station,” said Ereth. He was speaking over a private channel to Sebastian, and checking the authorisation code at the same time.

  “And this should collapse the shaft on top of the doors,” said Sebastian, checking that the ring of thermal cutters was firmly in place. He punched in a code and handed a small box to Ereth.

  “Push the central button and the cutters will melt the retaining walls onto the isolation doors,” he said. “That should leave a solid plug of rock and metal above us, when it’s all cooled.”

  Ereth nodded. He tapped in the ‘go’ command for the doors to close, and multiple alloy leaves slid over one another to seal off the shaft. The two men climbed down to join the others, further down the shaft.

  He was about to activate the small box Sebastian had given him when there was a massive detonation far above them. The rungs they were clinging to juddered against their hands.

  “Reaper ships!” exclaimed Ereth sharply.

  He looked at Sebastian, and they moved further down the protruding rungs. Ereth stopped when he judged they had a wide margin of safety below the door.

  “Brace yourselves,” he said over the open channel to those below him, and Mersa and Human alike took a firm grip on the rungs. Ereth pushed the button on the small box Sebastian had given him. A dull thump echoed above them and the leaves of the door, folded over each other to give a multiple thickness, began to glow red-hot.

  Hold for me, muttered Ereth. Don’t give way under the heat, you little composite wonders, and hold up the molten plug above us until it hardens.

  The ruddy colour of the door changed to a brilliant orange. But then, ever so slowly. it began to dull. It was soon obvious the isolation doors were going to hold.

  One problem down, one to go, muttered Ereth. The Invardii could bomb the depot into a pile of twisted metal and it wouldn’t matter to the staff from the complex now. But the cold, the lack of breathable air, suit failure, or the immense vertical depths below them, could kill them just as easily.

  In the skies above the ice planet, Ayman Case watched as a second Reaper ship detonated from within. Some outrageous manoeuvres had split the Invardii forces just long enough for his squadron to mount another coordinated attack against one of the enemy ships. He exulted at the success, but he knew that was the last one they were likely to destroy today.

  The Reaper ships had become very wary, and the defensive arcs from a dozen or more of them at once produced a firestorm that the Druanii shields might not hold against.

  “Squadron leader, you’ll want to see this,” said his navs officer, putting pictures from the surface onto the overhead screen. Ayman recognised the location in the mountains immediately. The depot was a smoking ruin. All that remained was a handful of twisted supports poking up out of a steaming lake.

  His heart sank. Dammit, when did that happen? He knew the enemy ships meant to cleanse the planet of any trace of the alliance. He had deduced that when part of their forces split off and headed for the main mining centre. But he hadn’t thought the tiny emergency depot would be targeted as well.

  It was a hard decision to make, but he wouldn’t be checking on the people in the depot. There was no chance that anyone was alive down there now, and he couldn’t spare ships to check out the site anyway. His squadron was outnumbered five to one, and the mining centre at Celimeesi was a higher priority.

  “Entry points forming,” said his navs officer suddenly, and switched the picture feed to a point half way round the planet. In the front of the image were a number of low buildings, most of them covered in strangely coloured ice and drifts of hardened snow.

  High in the atmosphere above them was a scattering of bright orange shapes. Ayman realised he was watching Reaper ships closing in on the mining centre at Celimeesi. It would be the same ones that had split off from the force opposing him here at the accelerator complex.

  “72 hostile vessels,” said his navs officer, “and 30 more entry
points forming above them.”

  Ayman swore under his breath. That made it even worse. Another 30 enemy ships would bring the total to more than a hundred, all converging on the Celimeesi centre. He was helpless to do anything while he was blockaded here by the remaining enemy ships.

  Would he have to watch helplessly as the mining base was completely destroyed, and every one of the Mersa and Human population went to their deaths?

  “Starships now emerging,” said the navs officer, monitoring the complex signals as the space-folding wave patterns ahead of the ships died away, and they emerged into normal space.

  “Those aren’t Reaper ships!” said Ayman in surprise, as a scattering of silver hulls blinked into existence high above the mining centre. Then he recognised what they were. The long, tubular shapes were modified Javelins. Cordez had sent the Valkrethi!

  A comms signal identified Air Marshall Cagill in the leading ship.

  “I think it’s time we gave these marauding thugs a little taste of our indignation, people,” he said on an open channel, and Ayman could see him grinning happily.

  Two squadrons of specially trained pilots, and a research team of four – along for ‘observational’ purposes only – nodded firmly in response. Half a dozen support ships, made up of comms, strategic command and backup, made ready for the destruction to come.

  “Mount up!” came the familiar command, and 24 enormous figures in outlandishly long cargo bays stirred and began to stretch in the standard Valkrethi warm up routine.

  Celia felt that same moment of panic as the panels in the back of her mount slid closed behind her, and then relaxed as air began to circulate inside her helmet. She moved her hand and brought up the optics, feeling confined as she lay staring at the cargo bay doors underneath her.

  Lastly she brought up the Valkrethi search function. It was of no use inside the cargo bay, but she wanted to lock onto one of the enemy ships the instant she was free of the Javelin.

  “Open the cargo bay doors,” said Cagill, and Celia felt a sense of weightlessness as gravitysum ceased and the doors swung away from her.

  Then she was free, and she could see the edge of the atmosphere below her, alive with the restless orange dots of Reaper ships as they slowed above the Celimeesi mining centre.

  She realised once again how life-like the Valkrethi were. She could feel the coldness of space on her skin, see better than she could with her own eyesight, and sense her mount’s weightlessness. There was no sign of Ayman Case’s squadron, which had been sent ahead of them to hold off the enemy. That made it all the easier. No friendlies to get in the way.

  Time to test all that practice on a live target, she muttered grimly, and moved her hand to open a pathway between herself and a Reaper ship directly below her.

  She wasn’t supposed to do this, she knew – she was just supposed to observe – but you couldn’t let your shipmates go into action alone. Besides, Roberto wouldn’t be able to stop himself, and she would have to save him from himself, again!

  Celia’s Valkrethi began to slide toward the enemy ship, picking up speed. It accelerated sharply to the mid point, and then decelerated sharply. In moments, it seemed, she was in the middle of the Reaper ship’s fiery orange shields. She felt the immense heat on her skin, and the plasma scratching at her, and then she was through.

  A little further over, Cagill entered the fiery hull of a Reaper ship at the same moment as Celia. He wondered at the strange sticky sensation of the shields. Then he broke through, and looked around in awe as he saw what was inside the shields.

  The Reaper ships were alive! All the alliance had seen in the past was the metallic hub and spar construction of the ships when their shields had been destroyed, but this was different.

  The shield behind him lit everything with a bright orange glow, and jagged beams of bright energy flickered from the many hubs of its construction to the shields and back. Were they drawing power from the shields, or supplying it to keep them running, he wondered.

  Then he noticed that the spars were moving, flexing like the great masts of ancient sailing ships. Different colours sparkled across them as the stresses within changed. It was a fantasy world, something like a great city lit up at night. He had not expected this!

  Then his forward speed brought him directly over one of the largest hubs. He moved a hand slightly to open a path onto it. The Valkrethi landed with knees bent, and even the imposing size of his mount was lost on the broad, flat surface of the hub.

  This would be his first time inside a hostile warship, and he could hear his heart beating loudly in his ears. He reached down and punched both fists through the surface of the hub. He grabbed an edge and tore the hole wider. There was no sign of a vented atmosphere, which surprised him. Did the Invardii worked in a vacuum? He felt an artificial gravity though. It had started pulling at him as soon as he landed on the hub.

  “The Valkrethi will have to make it up as they go along,” he muttered, lowering himself into whatever was below.

  He fell into a maze of rooms too small for his mount, and tore out a space to move about in. Then he realised he wasn’t close to a vital spot that he might use to destroy the ship. He smashed his way through more walls and floors, and lowered himself at last into a set of vast rooms that contained row after row of what looked like data panels. He started to move forward, then realised there were recesses in the walls, and each recess contained an Invardii cylinder, surrounded by a web of glowing filaments.

  “Goddammit!” breathed Cagill. He had stumbled into a dormitory of some sort, maybe a repair station, maybe even a nursery – how would he know?

  Something glowed briefly above one of the recesses, and then a circle of lights began to rotate in front of the cylinder it contained.

  “That doesn’t look good,” muttered Cagill to himself, and strode hurriedly across the room toward a portal in the opposite wall. It was too small for the Valkrethi to fit through easily, but it might lead to a more central area.

  There was a flash of light, and he turned to see one of the Invardii in its energy form, powerful orange legs striding toward him as a number of projections on the low dome of its ‘head’ clicked and whirred. It was tracking his movements, and it was closing fast. It was less than half the size of the Valkrethi, but there were hundreds of them in here.

  The best thing he could do was get rid of this one – fast – and make a run for it.

  CHAPTER 10

  ________________

  Cagill found himself in a warehouse full of Invardii. They were in their dormant cylinder state, but he knew he couldn’t wait around for them to wake up. He backhanded one cylinder that had already changed into its active form, and his fist passed straight through its shoulder. That part of the hybrid creature was, it seemed, pure energy.

  Then he lifted one giant-sized leg and booted the apparition squarely in the chest. This time he made a solid connection, and the orange shape disappeared as abruptly as it had arrived. A misshapen cylinder lay on the floor, leaking what looked like synthetic, multicoloured oils.

  The cylinder was part of the Invardii’s active phase, he realised in surprise. The head of the creature, with its many instruments, was one end of the cylinder.

  There were now bright flashes all around him, and that meant more of the cylinders were waking up. Cagill didn’t want to be distracted from his mission to destroy the enemy ship, so he tore a hole through the first wall he came to, and stepped into the gap he’d made. He found himself inside a massive power station.

  The circular room soared up through row after row of balconies. They ringed it all the way to a distant ceiling. The room was astounding in its own right, but Cagill was more interested in the thick column that stood at the centre of it. A number of translucent cables rode up the column, and he could see the surging plasma currents contained within them.

  Something bounced off the back of his Valkrethi, and then an energy blast blurred Cagill’s vision for a moment. He looked up,
and saw dozens of orange Invardii on the balconies, with more pouring out of portals onto the balconies every second.

  Cagill figured out that if he was in a major power station for the ship, these must be Invardii engineers. They were getting weapons from somewhere, or making them up from what they had on hand, and another blast scorched the floor next to him. There was no point in hanging around to see what they would try on him next!

  He took two giant strides to the line of thick power cables and grabbed one in each hand. The Invardii froze as they saw what he had done, and all activity in the chamber ceased. Cagill grinned, and tore the power cables from the central column.

  The broken ends erupted with chaotic matter at thousands of degrees, and the walls of the chamber disintegrated wherever he pointed his new-found weapons. Balconies collapsed and pandemonium reigned as the Invardii jammed the portals trying to escape.

  “That’s not nice,” said Cagill into the growing roar of noise. “On my ship we have more discipline. On my ship we look after our shipmates.”

  Then he pointed the broken cables at the central column, and the other cables ruptured one by one. There was one last, frenzied explosion, and Cagill blacked out. He came to in the middle of an expanding circle of debris and dying flame. Nothing of any significance remained of the enemy ship.

  “Delta leader, can you read me? Come in Delta leader,” said a voice in his ear. One of the ships that oversaw the Valkrethi operations was trying to contact him. He checked his mount’s diagnostics, then made sure each of his limbs still worked.

  “Cagill here,” he replied. “All systems still go. Have any of the Valkrethi taken on any damage yet?”

  “None in Delta squadron,” said ops, “One not responding in Alpha squadron. The research team are all okay. They have two kills by the way.” The ops officer sounded amused.

  Cagill growled under his breath. Damn civilians were supposed to stay out of harm’s way. His pilots could lose their lives trying to get civilians out of the messes they got themselves into.