“On the defensive,” Gwalcmai observed.
“Yes.”
There were three items on the surface of Mars, in the region that would become known as Cydonia, that were not natural. The first was the Airlia transmitter. A massive dish dug into a mountain, over a thousand meters in depth and three times that in width. At the very center was a glowing green crystal that focused outgoing transmissions while the dish gathered incoming transmissions from the surrounding latticework.
Not far from the mountain were two other objects. One was a huge pyramid, towering over five hundred feet above the surrounding plain. And near it a large rectangular formation was cut into the surface of the planet.
The top of the pyramid began to split open, each of the four sides moving away from the others. They reached vertical and kept going, massive hydraulic arms lowering the dark outer sides toward the ground. The interior of each triangular side caught the light of the sun and absorbed its power.
The left edge of the square base also began to change color as a huge covering panel started to slide open. As it did so, it revealed a half dozen rapier shapes — some of Aspasia’s Talon warships.
The solar panels poured power into the entire facility. Deep underground lights went on in a cavern lined with rows of deep sleep/regeneration tubes. Twenty in all. The black metal protecting them swung open, revealing the creatures inside. They were brought out of their stasis even as the Mars guardian began prepping the ships. A bolt of golden light arced from cables crisscrossing the side of the chamber down to each ship and they began to power up.
The defensive preparations did not go unnoticed by Artad.
Unfortunately for him, his slow reentry into the Sol Systemhad not gone unnoticed either. In the scanner shadow formed by the mothership’s wake, a small Swarm scout craft followed. It was shaped like a spider with a round body and eight protrusions all pointed forward. It had been following the mothership for ten years, patiently waiting to discover its destination. Its sensors were picking up the same thing the mothership’s were: ships and transmitter on the fourth planet from the star; intelligent life and an Airlia base on the third planet.
The alignment of the two planets was interesting because they were two-thirds away from each other in orbit around the star. Not exactly the strongest mutually supporting defensive position. The scout ship’s mandate was to report all signs of intelligent life back to a Battle Core. However, something strange seemed to be developing. The Swarm was familiar with the Airlia but it appeared as if there were some battle imminent. The scout ship saw no reason for this action by the Airlia other than its own presence, but it also saw no indication that it had been detected. Was there another player involved, another species threatening the Airlia?
The Swarm inside puzzled over this for a few moments, then decided to continue on course, following the mothership to gather more information before sending a report to the nearest Battle Core. This was something new, and new things worried the Swarm as much as it was capable of being worried.
Artad split his fleet. The mothership and four Talons headed toward Earth. Five Talons headed toward Mars. Shields went up, weapons were charged. The crews assumed their battle stations.
The first shots came over three hundred thousand kilometers from Mars as Talon met Talon. As both sides expected, the results were strained shields but no real damage. However, Artad’s Talons didn’t stop to fight the battle but continued their plunge in toward the Red Planet.
The pyramid, hangar, and power generator were all shielded, so Aspasia wasn’t very concerned with this development. Unfortunately, having been out of the forefront of the war against the Swarm for such a long time, he didn’t know that the Swarm had learned how to penetrate and cause damage beyond the types of shields he used and that Artad had been the beneficiary of this hard-earned knowledge and was now employing it himself.
Two of the four Talons trapped a small asteroid — a little over three hundred meters long by a hundred meters in width — between them with their tractor beams. The other two fended off the irritating but ineffectual attacks of Aspasia’s Mars-based Talons. The Airlia on Mars, still a bit groggy from being awakened from their deep sleep, watched the approaching craft and the rock caught in their tractor beam with confusion. The confusion turned to surprise when the Mars guardian traced out the approach vector and projected it to be directly at the communications array.
At fifty thousand kilometers the two craft turned off their tractor beams and let the asteroid be drawn down into Mars’ gravity, aimed directly at the transmitter. The Airlia manning the outpost realized what was happening, but were not overly concerned, as they had the shield up.
When the asteroid free-fell through the shield, the Airlia on Mars were shocked. They had scant seconds to react before it hit the array. Force equals velocity times mass. It is a rule of physics. The asteroid hit at a high velocity and its solid metal core had large mass. Its size and speed were converted into a hundred megatons of power.
The transmitter disappeared in a flash of light.
Aspasia stared at the wall of the sphere, at the image being sent by the Mars guardian of what had once been the interstellar transmitter. He couldn’t believe it — the shield wall was impenetrable to all forms of life and force weapons. How could a simple asteroid — the answer came to him as quickly as he posed the question: The asteroid had no active force other than velocity; and no life. It had been as blunt and archaic a weapon as these humans throwing stones at each other. And it had worked.
He realized that Artad could do the same with Atlantis. Indeed, as he shifted his gaze to the inbound mothership, he saw that two of the Talons accompanying it had captured another, larger, asteroid in their tractor beams and were towing it along a vector for Earth.
Aspasia issued new orders.
Artad could see the third planet clearly on the large curving screen at the front of the mothership bridge. A white-blue planet, perfect for life — at least life in Airlia form. He’d checked the survey records from the team that had discovered the planet over a thousand years earlier during the initial planning phases for the seed program. It had its own indigenous life, but none ranking anywhere on the intelligence scale.
A warning light flashed as two of Aspasia’s Talons came in on an attack vector. Ineffectual beams of gold were exchanged between Talons, but their goal was neither Talon nor mothership as they concentrated their fire on the asteroid caught in the tractor beam. Not under the protection of a shield, it exploded, splintering into hundreds of pieces.
Artad nodded. Aspasia was no fool. Artad brought his fleet to a halt a hundred thousand kilometers from the planet. Aspasia’s Talons backed off twenty thousand kilometers, between the two.
The fragments of the asteroid raced toward Earth, ignored by both sides.
The Swarm scout ship hid in the shadow of the moon, observing and waiting.
At Atlantis, almost the entire day had passed without any obvious activity at the palace. The shield wall was still in place and a saucer still slowly flew circles around the spire while Guides manned the walls.
Donnchadh and Gwalcmai were among thousands gathered around the innermost ring just outside the shield wall, watching and waiting. Darkness began to fall and still nothing changed.