Read Online War Factory: Transformations Book Two by Neal Aher - Free Book Online Page B

He did not tell them that Sverl was the key to restarting the war against the Polity.
    However, the first attempt to capture Sverl had been a failure, so his plans had changed. His contacts in the Kingdom had lined up another target for Vlern’s brood, because the location of the females would be of secondary importance to the Five’s method of escape. Of course, having snatched the females, the Five intended to head far away from the Kingdom, and the Graveyard, beyond the reach of other prador and out there begin breeding. Their plans were irrelevant because Cvorn had thwarted them from the beginning. He had neglected to tell them of the odder qualities of the biotech augs that his supplier, Dracocorp, had provided.

3
     
    SVERL
    The fusion drive seared the rocky ground beyond the city, instantly scouring away the meagre vegetation in a cloud of ash and smoke, rocks cracking and smoking in sun fire and turning molten. Closely linked into his ship’s systems, Sverl hinged out its stabilizing feet and read the error reports but found nothing critical.
    Exterior cams showed the feet—great flat skates of exotic alloy folding down on hinged legs driven by massive gas-fed rams, shielded on their inner sides by hardfields—coming down on molten rock and sinking. This was a problem the designers had foolishly failed to compensate for throughout the war, Sverl remembered. He’d known of many instances of ships trapped on the ground after rock hardened about their feet, and Polity forces annihilating them.
    He shut down the fusion drive and listened to his ship creaking and groaning around him as it settled. He noted the vessel was tilting slightly and, for a moment, assumed that the ground must be softer over on one side. Upon checking, however, he saw that the landing feet there had sunk no deeper than had the others. Further checking revealed, half a mile to one side, a squat cliff apparently rising out of the ground. It wasn’t rising; the rock on this side of it was sinking. Under the immense weight of the dreadnought a chunk of volcanic rock, under the feet on one side and sitting on softer sedimentary rock, had broken off from that surrounding it and was now sinking. Sverl further probed the ground with his sensors, but even as he did so the rate of sinkage slowed. It would be fine—if they could ever take off again.
    “Bsorol,” he said, the image of that first-child immediately coming up on one of his screens. Many years of chemically maintained adolescence had twisted Bsorol, his legs bowed and his carapace whorled like old wood. “I want a team suited up and outside when feasible. I want thermal-sealed fracture charges pushed into the hardening rock about the landing feet within the next hour.”
    “Yes, Father,” Bsorol replied. Then, after a hesitation, “There are many humans out there.”
    Sverl glanced at another screen. Various gravans and gravcars, ATVs and cargo platforms led the crowds moving out from the city. One of these cars had moved too close during the dreadnought’s descent and now lay on its side, its passengers climbing out. Sverl recognized the shellman Taiken, along with what were presumably members of his family: a female and two boys. The other vehicles had sensibly maintained their distance so were okay, while the people on foot had dropped to the ground, a hot smoky wind howling above them. Of course, like many other children aboard, Bsorol had taken an interest in the goings-on in Carapace City. He had also been in proximity with the humans while serving his time guarding the small land-based space port—mostly so Sverl could have a presence there if he needed to act quickly against some threat. However, despite his long years of service to Sverl, Bsorol, like his siblings, was still almost certainly viciously xenophobic. This might be a problem.
    “Yes, there are humans out there,” Sverl replied, “and soon they will be coming aboard this ship to occupy Quadrant Four and the