POD (The Pattern Universe) (28 page)

“Acknowledged,” Pod responded.

Zeke allocated two left-hand view-screens for a direct link to Alpha Station and the Earth control room. As they both slipped into passive observer mode, Zeke couldn’t help but think that they were seriously undermanned for a battle of these proportions. It may only be one ship, but should there be a direct hit on the SCC base, there would be virtually no Earth defence left.

“I’m picking up signals from the sentinels,” said Pod “The Shadow ship is entering Earth orbital, on the opposite side of the planet to us, it will take several jumps to get in range.”

“Proceed, Pod, but stop short of entering into weapons range if you can figure out what that might be,” Zeke ordered.

Zeke pressed the button on his console and both his screens went from passive to active, meaning he was able to talk to both.

“We have contact with enemy vessel in Earth orbit, we are jumping to investigate. I suggest proceeding with fighters to the location being given to your control by Pod. We will stand off until they arrive, over.”

Pennington’s distorted features appeared. “Thanks, Zeke, Fighters already on route to target and should be there at the same time you arrive in range - good luck, out.”

Goeth just waved confirming he had heard. They were still programming Arty to handle the mammoth task of dispersing the sentinels. There were no other weapons aboard the Alpha Station, as yet, other than defensive. Their ability to participate was going to be limited to the new equipment that Pod had installed for Arty. A sealed version of its Dematz drive which would enable it to utilise the system through a series of routines that interacted with it, but would not allow Arty complete access to understand its workings.

Earth was not yet ready for such advances.

As Pod’s jumps brought them closer to the individual ship, Zeke had Pod zoom in on the location until they could discern the tiny dot. It quickly expanded to fill their screen and Pod had to zoom back out again to regain perspective.

They were looking at a wreck.

“Pod, what do you think? Did your nanites do all of that damage in two hours?” Zeke asked.

“It is quite likely, although they are far more destructive than I had imagined,” Pod responded. “We may well be able to scale back the density of the planned saturation levels. I will beam this to Alpha Station for their thoughts.”

Zeke aimed the sensors at the derelict ship and was surprised to get readings of electrical activity. Pod was quick to pick up on the emanations. “It would appear that something in there is still active,” it stated.

“Can we get a visual in there at all?” Zeke asked, not sure if Pod could provide any external visuals.

“I am sending a surveillance orb into the wreckage; on screen three,” Pod confirmed.

The small orb approached the black hull, which was still losing pieces of its main carcase as the effects of the now dead nanites created loose debris that was pulled away by the planets’ gravity, or the orbit speed of the craft. As they approached, it showed evidence of robotic creatures half in and out of the craft. The ship was totally decimated.

As the orb moved towards the hatchway, strangely open, it detected movement inside and progressed along the outside of the ship to see a robot hanging by one limb from the side of the craft. Its head bobbing back and forth, it was unable to do anything except hang on, the other top limb and lower body gone, eaten away by the killer nanites.

Moving back to the main hatchway, the orb was in time to see movement inside and activated its sensors to read the infra-red and microwave spectrum. It just caught sight of an enemy, presumably a Nubl, when the thing fired a laser pistol and the orb exploded in spectacular fashion.

As the screen went dead, the laser pistol appeared on the console in front of Zeke. Startled, he tried to move away but the straps kept him in his chair. He quickly released the straps and cautiously moved around the weapon while he looked at it from a respectable distance.

“Pod, put this somewhere safe until Osbourne can pull it apart, will you?” Zeke commanded, “and get another orb out there. Let's see what we are up against in that wreck before the fighter boys get here and want to use it for target practice.”

Another orb was despatched, this time with Pod running interference as it tried to follow the internal movements inside the hulk without the benefit of effective sensor readings. It was difficult to distinguish between what was ship and infrastructure and what represented the Nubl. There were not many differences.

Pod made a suggestion. “I can capture this Nubl and hold it in one of the aft decks with tractor beams if you wish.”

Zeke thought for a moment. It might be worth doing some study on these things, but if this one got loose it might be able to do considerable damage. “Pod, I’m a little dubious about this, but yes, I think it's worth a try if you can beam it across and contain it. I would also suggest you check it for inbuilt devices - comms and self destruct are the obvious ones that come to mind.

Make sure it cannot communicate with anything,” he added, his concerns mounting.

“Secured in aft storage bay four,” Pod reported.

“Let's tow that hulk to the asteroid where we might get some engineering knowledge out of it for defence purposes.”

“Affirmative, Zeke. At least three of the weapons nodes are operational from sensor readings, the controls have been disabled by the nanites.”

“Gee! I hope all of those things are really dead. They could cause havoc with our asteroid base.”

“Affirmative, the nanites are all destroyed and there are no more moving objects in the Nubl vessel.

Zeke, there is something else you should know. There are two hundred ships just arriving in the system. The sentinels are proceeding to move into attack formation.”

“How many sentinels do you have there?”

“Two hundred along their route. They are moving into the path of the enemy.”

“Get them to hold back Pod, and do not permit them to fire anti-matter missiles. Instead, as the enemy approaches fire the nanite missiles and get them to drop the thrusters as soon as they are heading in the direction of the ships.”

“You believe the glass vials will go undetected?” Pod questioned.

“They appear to have done so the first time, unless the first ship has warned them, they should fall into the same trap - some should get through even if they blast them. Those nanites of Ossie’s are almost indestructible.”

Zeke updated Pennington on the state of the first invader as they picked up from Arty’s receivers the arrival of the main force of two hundred, or more. Zeke related the success of the tactic they had employed with the nanite barrage and outlined how Arty was going to surround the ships once they turned up at Earth and infect them with more nanites. It was their only effective means of direct attack besides the fighters, who were now returning to base.

The tractor beam pulled the relic along with them as they jumped. To any watching enemy sensors the ship would have simply vanished, the two hops back to the asteroid base would have been too fast to detect and Pod deliberately jumped to the blind side of the asteroid base.

Within ten minutes, they were safely ensconced in the hangar bay while Lang and Osbourne were ported to meet them by Arty who was obviously getting the hang of the Dematz device. They had the remnants of an enemy ship, but did they have time to analyse anything and provide any defence. Zeke doubted it.

Zeke asked Pod to transfer the laser gun, which arrived on the deck in front of them. Osbourne picked it up and handled it, then turning away from them across the expanse of the hangar, he fired it at the furthest wall. The red beam went the full two hundred yards and blew out a small section of wall indicating it had quite a punch and a good range. He and Lang decided that replicating that should be their first objective.

They pored over the craft taking images and following weaponised crystals back to their source to understand how they functioned.

Zeke left them to it, returning to the ship.

He pressed the comms, “Arty, give us an update on the state of readiness of the sentinels, please.”

- 22 -

Just as the Celnista g’Nal arrived in the human system, the Avien Queen and her g’Neel of two thousand ships were ‘stood to’ just out of range of the Celnista home worlds. Her spies had just reported a departure of some magnitude. A hunting party would consist of fifty ships; a breach of their borders a hundred ships, no more. This was much bigger, two hundred Shadow-ships, formidable foes. An invasion of another hive?

The Avien Queen dithered, it might be a trap. The Celnista hive might know of her plans for a Haseel and, being prepared, might even now be circling around to catch her forces from behind, as she moved in on her enemy.

She was patient and decided to wait a while longer before attacking. She sent out sentries to the rear in case of a surprise attack from the Celnista and then sat back to wait.

It had been a busy period preparing for this Haseel, it had required intense productivity on the part of her workers to bring it about. Her hive had doubled in size as a result. On the face of it, they were now more than a match for the Celnista.

She had been troubled by minor incidents of sabotage during much of the production schedule and not knowing its origins had set her best clones to tracking them down. It had taken the re-compositioning of several thousand workers, but in the end they had a lead. It appeared there was an underground resistance of Nonnies, something they would never have discovered without the increased intensity of production.

The Avien Queen had her suspicions it might be larger than just her local system, but compared to a full hive they were no match. It appeared they had no base, no ships, no weapons to speak of and no leader. Hah! She thought, I will clean them up after Celnista is no more.

She had no idea that Celnista was at this moment recalling all of her patrols in preparation to sending them after her ‘Ta and the g’Nar that had followed him.

As the Avien Queen ordered her g'Neel forward, her rear guard sentries full of ‘battle fever’ quickly followed behind, but they were in too much of a hurry to join the melee.

None of them noticed the two Celnista patrol groups that had appeared behind their returning sentries and who now began to shadow them. Having been recalled by their own Queen, the patrols had stumbled into the awaiting war party and had quickly alerted their star-base, which was, at this very moment, assembling its fleet ready to respond.

The Celnista Queen received a garbled message from her ‘Ta so understood the danger of not having a large enough force to deal with the pestilence. All her forces around the star-base were put on immediate alert and were already forming up into what would constitute a g’Neel when the patrols returned.

She was awaiting an update from her g’Nar Talon before despatching the wrath of Celnista hive against this biological infection, when the call came in that an attack was forming on their border from another hive. The Queen raged, realising she was caught on the jew-claw of decision.

Quickly realising her own safety and that of the hive must come first, the Queen suppressed a howl of rage that would have reverberated through her crystal empire and unnerved her strongest warriors. Instead, she ordered every warship into space in preparation for the coming attack.

Despite the timely warning, the attack, when it came, was so fast that Celnista ships were blown out of the air by the Avien armada before they even had the chance to come to bear on the invaders.

Two hundred ships were lost in the first few periods and the close proximity of the battle to the star-base meant that the asteroids became targets for errant missiles which, having missed their intended targets, ploughed into the surface of the Celnista home-world.

Then the Celnista shadow patrols that came in behind the invasion began to have an impact on the rear of the invading fleet. The Avien Queen quickly came to realise that she had erred and the Celnista hive had been warned. Her own hive was now being attacked on two fronts. They suffered a reversal of fortunes and now fought for their lives and their own survival. The battle became a rage of fury as hive was now pitted evenly against hive.

Slowly, the Celnista Queen drove the Avien invasion back away from her star-base as her forces worked together to contain the threat. Her superior battle strategies caught them in a pincer movement and when the time was right, she sent in her own Palace guard. Their skill, though untested in real battle for aeons, were up to the task and with surgical precision they removed the Avien Queen’s ship from her fleet and tractored it to the star-base.

While the rest of Celnista's fleet continued to battle, the Avien Queen’s ship was stormed by Celnista clone guards and the Avien Queen disabled by a powerful electric stunner. Within minutes, all fighting stopped and the remaining ships hung in space while their crews stood silent, unmoving, awaiting their next command.

The Celnista shadows grabbed at Avien ships that were now flying out of control bringing them to a halt. Some were not caught in time and collided with others. Eventually, order was brought out of chaos and the enemy’s ships were lined up in what was left of their fleet.

The Crystal Queen, angered beyond reason, raged in front of the now awakened prisoner who, unable to communicate with her hive, was totally at the Crystal Queen’s mercy. The Celnista Queen bore down on her. This was unusual, the fate was usually immediate execution, yet this Queen, who raged in front of her, was not even wielding her formal royal laser sword.

“You dared commit Haseel on me, you worthless Avien commoner.” The Crystal Queen roared at her.

The Avien bristled her iridescent plumage at the insult. Not cowed by another of her kind, she stood her ground but said nothing. Why was this Queen even speaking to her, she wondered. This is not our way.

“Do you realise your stupidity has cost yet more of our kind?” the Queen spoke to her again.

Again, the Avien Queen remained silent, awaiting the execution that should be hers by right. When it didn’t come, she looked askance at her royal sister. “Why do you not do the honourable thing and cleave me with your sword?" she asked bitterly. "You are victorious, my hive will be destroyed.”