Invardii Box Set 2 by Warwick Gibson

Author:Warwick Gibson [Gibson, Warwick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-05-15T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 20

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The three dooplehuel were close to Spitzbergen by the time the sun set. The Valkrethi were already in the cave Menon had prepared for them, when Hudnee and the others sailed past. They had a long way to go yet. Relying on the stars above them, the villagers continued down the coast in the darkness, each dooplehuel steered by one of the crew as the others slept.

They didn’t see the cliffs of Spitzbergen end, or the swamps of the eastern wastelands begin. Around the middle of the night they started to angle in toward the shore, and when dawn came they were running in to the coast with the islands of the Barrens dead ahead. The villagers called them the Teeth.

“Perfect,” said Hudnee, as he stood, balancing carefully in the front of one of the narrow hulls, surveying their position. “Now we just have to find Blood river and make it to one of the islands. We’ll have an excellent view from there.”

“Not long to Blood river,” said one of the men behind him. “I can see the Pillar and the Scouse starting to line up. When they do, we follow the shore down until we hit the Blood.”

Hudnee nodded. He was looking forward to the coming battle. They all were. The vast underwater ring of the Invardii base, and the giants he had been told the Alliance was bringing. It should be quite a show.

The main force of Javelins came out of star drive well above the atmosphere but directly over the Barrens. Every Hud pilot on Prometheus had volunteered for this mission as soon as it was announced. They were keen to rid their home planet of the Invardii presence, whatever the cost.

Hud pilots now controlled more than half the 320 Javelins Prometheus could field. It was they, plus the Human pilots of the modified Javelins carrying the Valkrethi, that looked down on a ring of islands bordering a large, flat continent, far below them.

“Remember not to get excited, and rush the job,” said Ayman Case, now Commodore Case and mission leader while Cagill led the Valkrethi. He was speaking to the task force that had been assembled for the attack on the Barrens.

“Our job is to draw out the destruction of the mining base, and draw in as many of the Reaper ships as we can.”

He knew there would be an orchestrated nodding of heads in the Javelins arrayed around him. These were experienced pilots and technicians, most from the planet below and all hardened to the grueling demands of war. They would live and die depending on each other, and they would stick to the plan. Any ideas of personal glory had been stripped from them long ago.

“Sensors on the Sea Anemone are plotting the Barrens topography now,” he continued, “expect data in a few minutes.”

The sensor array on the Sea Anemone – a modified Javelin containing surveillance equipment – had already extended to its full width. The strange, ungainly blob with its ‘feeding mouth’ fully open did look like a sea anemone filtering sea water for scraps of food.

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