Task Force Mars - Kevin Dockery [90]
“Actually, we heard that you practice ritual killing, that your young warriors must find an innocent civilian of some other race and cut them in two with a steel blade.”
“I am Olin Parvik, of the Assarn,” the pilot announced. “And that is not true. We are indeed a warrior society. We have to be with enemies such as the Eluoi and Shamani. But there is no honor in the killing of innocents.”
“Why did your ships attack Batuun?” Jackson asked, adding: “Not that I’m complaining! We were in a pretty fix there until you came along. But you were fighting against some damned long odds.”
Parvik made a spitting gesture toward the window and the great white city. “The Eluoi are little more than slavers—kidnappers, in fact. They have been raiding our worlds on this rim of the galaxy for many years. It was only recently we learned that this planet, this place called Batuun, is where they collect those slaves and prepare them for transport to the far side of the galaxy. They have thousands of our people held captive in that great pyramid. We were attempting to rescue them, but sadly, our numbers were too few. The air defenses, especially in the pyramid, were too many, and more than half our ships were destroyed. The rest were forced to withdraw—for the time being, at least.”
“Do the Eluoi control many worlds in this area of the galaxy?” Jackson asked.
“Not terribly many. But where they have outposts, they are like this, teeming with millions of population and defended against attack by our starships.” He nodded toward the massive square tower that loomed just beyond the northeast wall of the city. “The PDB—that is, planetary defense battery—would destroy any spaceship in orbit over this hemisphere of Batuun. So instead we launched our shuttles from the far side of the world and came around to make the attack at low altitude after we took out their satellite detection and defensive systems.”
“You came down to the surface in your little fighters? Brave move, but isn’t it foolhardy, too?” the lieutenant probed.
Parvik shrugged, his blond ponytail bouncing on his back. “Rash, perhaps. But they will remember us for a long time, you can be sure. You can see we damaged their local defenses and sowed a great deal of confusion. And I have hopes that we still might meet with some success.”
“I notice you attacked the pyramid but not the PDB. Wouldn’t it make sense to try and take that out so that your starships could close in?”
The pilot shook his head, grimacing in frustration. “We lack the weaponry even to put a dent in that tower. It is shielded with steel as well as forty meters of concrete. Our missiles would barely dent it.”
“What kind of weapon is it? Or are there more than one?” Jackson probed, studying the square structure. It was even taller than the pyramid and must have been very well armored if the weapons that had chewed up the central structure were impotent against it.
“A plasma beam cannon. It cuts through the atmosphere with enough force to simply boil the air out of its path. When it reaches space—which it does at nearly the speed of light—it can slice through anything in its path. In the vacuum, its range is nearly unlimited—say, at least a half million kilometers.”
“So any ship that even goes into a high orbit is a potential target,” the officer realized. Olin Parvik nodded.
“What’s your plan now?” Jackson asked. “Do you intend to try and get back to your ships in orbit?”
Parvik shrugged. “To do that I would need a shuttle; this jetcar will not take us out of the atmosphere.” He looked at the officer frankly. “And what are your intentions…your plan?”
Jackson was forced to shrug. “I haven’t got one. We have four comrades who are prisoners of the Eluoi—we have reason to believe that they, too, are being held within that pyramid—and I hope to rescue them. But our people back home don’t even know where we are, and I have no way to get word to them.”
“Did you know there is a broadcaster