Chapter 14

"Scott mac Fergus, you are going to allow these beasts to defeat you. There is more that you can do, much more. You must protect the Stone at all costs and repair the damage we, the iLOX, have done."

Scott sat bolt upright in his bed, the message he seemed to have been given by the Stone still clear and ringing in his head. Fiona and Eilean muttered and turned over in their sleep. He rose and carefully clambered over Eilean to get out of the bed. Putting on some clothes, he made his way through the house and into his study.

The Stone stood in the corner, the little Brecbennoch still sitting on top of it. He crossed the room and touched his hand lightly to the black stone, immediately feeling a surge of power going through his body. An image of Tara appeared in his head, quickly followed by something else, the face of a strange being. The creature appeared transparent, with a milky white quality to its 'flesh'. He made out two black eyes before the face faded. For some reason he knew the words that had been in his head when he awoke and the face of this strange being were inextricably linked.

Scott opened the little fridge and got himself a drink of fruit juice. He sat at the table and began to go over his situation, the Earth's situation. There had been no alarms raised by the staff in the Operations Room, so he assumed there were no active threats from the iLOX at present. For some reason using that name suddenly rang a discordant note. He shook himself and tried to concentrate on the challenges ahead.

He was sure the success of the 'dog whistle' would be a one off, as the iLOX would simply do something to protect their ears against the ultrasonic sound. Scott knew he couldn't rely on using it successfully again. He decided to work through his problems systematically, starting from far out in space and working in towards the Earth's surface.

There was still no information on where the iLOX were coming from or how many of them there were. Scott considered that his biggest weakness. Without that information it was impossible to gauge the scale of the job in front of them or gather intelligence that might help in planning defences. He decided he would need to sacrifice at least one of the available Broadswords to continue the work of placing jump reactors and communications devices around the galaxy. That was the only idea he had come up with to try and pinpoint where the iLOX base was.

Next he considered the near space environment. He had scored notable successes with the parasites and the self-propelled mines. Scott realised he had been neglecting existing technology in favour of dreaming up new 'wheezes'. He had already thought about establishing a perimeter of defences around the Earth, not a million miles away from the approach he had taken to defend Dalriada against the Vikings. Rail guns and Gauss cannons would be very effective in space he knew and he made a mental note to accelerate the construction of platforms to put these on. If the platforms could include cloaking technology, he could have these circling the Earth to provide all round cover.

He had still not used the little surprise he had tasked the USS Fife and the USS Fortrenn to set up so he knew he had that up his sleeve for now. Scott decided that whichever Broadsword he tasked to re-commence positioning the booster jump reactors should also set more of these surprises too.

He wracked his brain to try and come up with anything else that would be helpful in the near space environment. What was different about space when compared to warfare on the planet's surface, he thought? The vague outline of an idea occurred to him. Gravity was different up there. The pull of the Earth's gravity and the gravitational effect of other bodies were different depending on how close you were to the body. Was there something in that, something that might be turned into a weapon?

He changed his focus to the known challenge he faced on the planet's surface. There were still almost seven hundred thousand iLOX in China with assault vehicles and fighter support. They didn't appear to have any more of the chemical agent they had used to commit genocide on the Chinese, but he made another mental note to check with the scientists on whether they had developed any defence against such an attack.

Scott tried to come up with anything that might give his forces an edge against the iLOX. He had already increased production of weapons including lasers, rail guns and coil rifles. The first assault vehicles were also due to roll off of the production line - basically an adapted freight vehicle with additional Kevlar armour and shield capability. He had ordered these be fitted with both pulse cannon and rail guns. Production of the fighting androids was now reaching ten thousand a day so anything he could do to delay the iLOX from attacking again would help significantly in allowing him to increase the forces he had at his disposal. The success of Mac's troopers in wiping out the iLOX leadership would surely help in that regard.

The ten thousand remaining Scots soldiers were already training volunteers as quickly as they could, but he couldn't expect to have usable troops from that programme for weeks. Scott asked himself whether it might not be better to simply abandon this training so he would be able to use the ten thousand Scots immediately. After all, with ten thousand droids being manufactured each day, would he need the human troops?

He knew he had a lot to get through, so started by asking Shaygan to connect him to the various scientists, engineers and plant managers in order to set as much in train as he could.

Scott was interrupted in his round of video calls when another screen in the study came on, displaying Admiral MacCulloch. He turned to face the Admiral.

"Your Grace, we have more iLOX cruisers dropping transporters just outside the earth's atmosphere," the Admiral informed him.

"Sweet Jesu! Is there no end to them? How many of their cruisers have we destroyed already?" Scott responded.

"The numbers are significantly fewer this time, your Grace. I think we must have made quite a dent in their capacity with our previous attack. Sensors show that there are only around one hundred and fifty cruisers in the fleet and they have launched approximately one thousand transporters. I've tasked some of our drones to head towards them to try and deploy some parasites, but it looks like a fast drop manoeuvre."

"What are the Broadswords doing?" asked Scott.

"Waiting for a chance to attack if we can get the cruisers' shields down or to launch their fighters if the cruisers make a jump after dropping the transporters," the Admiral replied.

"Ok, Admiral. I'm on my way to the Operations Room."

Scott made his way out of the house, advising William to stay with his wives and children for the day, and headed for the Operations Room. He entered to find anxious faces and a degree of tension in the air, as people waited to see what the iLOX cruisers were going to do next. If they made a jump out of the system it would be safe to deploy the US fighters to take on the transporters. If they didn't, there might be a chance that the parasites could be deployed and the cruisers themselves could be attacked by the Broadswords.

"Transporters heading for the surface. Two minutes until the drones carrying US 1 and US 2 countermeasures will be in position above the alien cruisers," the AI updated them all.

"AI, can we tell whether the transporters are carrying any more of the chemical agent?" Scott asked.

"Negative, your Grace. I have no intelligence on that at this time. I have tasked our long-range communications intercepts to listen to them, but nothing of any value as yet. Telemetry does suggest they are not steering a course for China, at least not directly."

This fact suggested to Scott that the new wave of transporters did indeed carry more chemical agent. If they were simply re-inforcing their forces on the ground surely they would be flying directly to China as quickly as they could?

"Admiral, are the transporters within range of the Broadswords' pulse cannon and rail guns?" he asked.

"Negative, your Grace. They could hit them with torpedoes, but there's too many of them and firing would immediately betray their positions to the iLOX cruisers," the Admiral replied.

"Admiral, if those transporters are allowed to enter our atmosphere there might not be any of us left in a few minutes. I want the Atholl and Buchan on station so they can open up with everything they've got as soon as the cruisers make a jump. AI, will the transporters pass any of the splash units?" Scott asked.

"The transporters will shortly be within range of two splash units, your Grace," the AI responded softly.

"Splash them, splash them all, immediate effect!" Scott demanded.

"Executing splash command, your Grace."

The splash units were another of Scott's innovations. The units were housed on platforms in space and were made up of huge tanks of pressurised paint. The paint was made up of the most inflammable chemicals the planet could muster and this was sprayed out using compressed air. The conditions in space made it possible to use very little air pressure to spray the paint large distances.

The splash units now opened up and sprayed the paint over all of the iLOX transporters, coating them thickly in the gooey stuff.

"Sensors indicate the iLOX cruisers are preparing an inter-stellar jump, your Grace," the AI said.

"Admiral, give me the firepower from the Broadswords, now!"

"The Broadswords have been ordered to engage, your Grace," the Admiral replied.

The iLOX cruisers made their jump and the US Broadswords de-cloaked as they brought all of their guns and lasers to bear on the transporters. The transporters went to top speed and began to drop for the planet's surface immediately, jockeying from side to side to try and avoid the incoming fire.

The two broadswords were ripping the transporters to shreds, but not quickly enough and over five hundred made it through to begin their entry into the Earth's atmosphere. The heat of such an entry was normally easily dealt with by the transporters heat shields. But the addition of the highly combustible paint more than trebled the amount of heat when it caught fire and they watched in the Operations Room as the craft glowed white hot, literally toasting the iLOX inside.

The communications intercept picked up the bloodcurdling screams of the wolfish creatures as they cried out for help. Scott ordered the blackened hulls to be tracked down to the surface and for recovery vehicles to be dispatched to pick up some of them for testing. If there was any of the chemical agent on board, he hoped they would be able to recover a sample for the scientists to work on.