Voyage of the Stardancer

Chapter 12 - Wars End

Oberon, shouted us over to the left side off the cavern to where he had found a large control terminal. It showed the disposition of each of the generators, power output, steam turbine pressure, and fusion reaction. All except five and six showed red lights as we expected, so Oberon pressed the manual override button and switched five from standby to the underground complex supply. Number five immediately started to run up to operating speed, the magnetic clutch engaged, and with a whine from the protesting electrical generator after being  unused for years, the lights in the access tunnel flickered and came on after so long in darkness. The next part was the main thing that we were here for, number six was supplying power to the battle computer, but when Oberon tried to shut it down, the system refused, because number five had been locked to the city. Brigsy said that the only way we could shut it down would be to disable the generator its self, so Oberon and his Gentecs started to manually power down the cold fusion reactor. Anything seemed to be going to plan, as Oberon said it would take about 60 minutes for the various processes to safely stop after cutting the water supply, when a creaking noise came from the very rear of the generator room. Two of the Soldats went to investigate, but within minutes the sound of weapons fire could be heard, one of the Soldats came running back firing into the gloom behind him. He shouted to Brindac that they had encountered one of the mini-crabs and the leading Soldat had been killed with its high voltage weapon and that it to must be low on power because it stopped moving while the weapon recharged. The remaining Soldats dragged packing cases and anything else they could find across the space between the end of the slowing number six generator and the cavern wall. The very act of shutting the last generator down and denying the battle computer access to the backup one must have triggered the mini-crab response; I had wondered why the generators seemed to be unguarded even though it had had an armoured door. The sound of a metallic clicks brought me out of my inner thoughts; the mini-crab appeared, its red malevolent eyes glowing in its slowly swivelling head. The Soldats open up on it, the sounds in the large cavern was deafening as the projectiles ricocheted of its armoured body trying to find a vulnerable spot. It lurched unsteadily on its partially seized legs towards the barricade, its three clawed arm reaching forwards to ensnare a victim, so its high voltage weapon could be deployed. Even in these circumstances I could not cease to marvel at the level of engineering that this civilisation could produce, a robot that had been immobile for more than a hundred years was still in an operating condition. I shouted to the Soldats to concentrate their fire on the eyes in the head unit, remembering how the Civs at the barricade had disabled the mini-crabs there. The mini-crab began climbing over the barricade, crushing the packing cases, it objective to kill the Gentecs that were shutting the generator down. The concentrated fire to the head unit was having an effected, the mini-crab was losing its direction and began lashing out at anything close enough. The young Soldat who had been attacked in the village ran forward, determined to regain his honour. He jammed his assault rifles muzzle into an arm joint and pulled the trigger, the projectiles going deep into the body of the robot. It retaliated by pulling the young Soldat off with its clawed arm and killing him with the high voltage weapon. The mini-crab stalled, movement slowed. Whether it was the damage done by the assault rifle or simply that the discharge of the voltage weapon at maximum that had been too much, for the mini-crab powered down, it red viewing eyes getting dimmer, till they went out. Brindac shouted over the gunfire to stand down, the Soldats moving back away from the mini-crab, still not sure that it was over. Oberon shouted that the generator was going through the final shut down stage and within minutes the magnetic clutch disengaged, the generator slowed and became silent. It was finally over.

We quickly made our way back though the now illuminated tunnel to the Command Centre, The awful sights that we had seen in the flickering lights of the torches, now illuminated and making the sight even grizzlier. On reaching the Command Centre we found the battle computer silent, its monitor screens and the giant world screen blank. The war was over! We made some temporary stretchers from there maining wood from the barricade to transport the bodies of the two Soldats which had been killed by the mini-crab back up to the surface, the full extent that the dictator had inflicted on his people now evident in the now illuminated corridors. When we had reached the underground complexes entrance, the two Soldats were buried with the honours that they deserved with Brindac saying a lament in their strange musical language. Brigsy said listen. I looked at him, with a puzzled expression. He said there are no sounds of air craft, anything, other than the sounds of wild life. On our journey from the coast the sky always had the sight or sounds of aircraft. Having completed our mission, we started our return journey to the coast and our boat. After two days of walking, the translator had burst into life, it was Captain Mercer. They had arrived four days earlier after making successful repairs to the warp-drive, and observing that the war was still in progress, triangulated in on our position. They found us on the eastern continent, still moving within the under ground complex but unable to get a signal through the thick walls and depth of the complex, so they waited. The breaking point came when the operator manning the sensors that monitored the aircraft movement from both sides, suddenly cried out that an entire Minevian squadron had dropped out of the sky and crashed into the sea. Another operator said that an attack fleet that he had been watching heading East had suddenly stopped and started to drift. He knew then that the war was over, he monitored the Andorian side and that too had powered down, the aircraft had returned to base, the ships to port. I called everyone together and told them that a scout ship was on its way to pick us up, with Guardian powering down, the war was really over. Within 30 minutes the sound of an aircraft could be heard, and with a graceful decent, the anti-gravity motors whining, the large scoutship which was used mainly for transporting supplies etc, gently touched down, it's landing legs appearing out of the streamline sides. The Andorians, not knowing that the craft was friendly had still kept a discrete distance away, because the only machines that they had seen had been hostile. As the hatch started to open, Brigsy and I ran down to the ship as Captain Mercer himself jumped down from the lowering ramp. He looked us up and down; our uniforms dirty and torn, our faces sunburnt and soot covered, said our appearance was a disgrace to the ship. A huge smile then split his face and grabbed both of us, saying he knew we could do it. Getting everyone on board, we went the short distance to where the Protema was beached, and after landing and explaining to the Hydrotecs who had ran off thinking the Minevians had found them, decided to a man that they would sail the Protema back home to Andoria.