Star Kitten (52 page)

The gigantic
machines had a massive drill bit mounted on them that protruded
twenty feet out from the front of the vehicle. The entire metal
behemoth was mounted onto a chassis with enormous tracks to move it
about instead of wheels; so it was capable of burrowing through
tunnels, cave-ins, or even creating new tunnels to try and encircle
a well-entrenched defender. What’s more, each of these fifty steel
monsters had been altered to include a troop carrier on top which
contained units of twenty to thirty-five soldiers, protected inside
a climate-controlled 50’ long reinforced steel cabin.

These “tunnel
tanks” had been developed just for this mission and stood about
thirty feet high at their tallest point. Attacking the front was
impossible. All the Nausties would see coming at them was a
gleaming metal drill spinning rapidly. Attacking the sides was
suicidal too as the crew of fifteen to twenty crewmen inside
operated massive guns which could spray projectiles in several
directions. The rear… was nothing but a wall of thick steel which
could be opened to create a massive ramp for troops to spill out
and perform mop-operations. What’s more, the top or roof of the
craft was impregnable thick steel and the engines were safely
located underneath, just inside the reinforced belly of the
monstrous craft. No defenses could stand up to them, and no amount
of bravery could endure a fire- fight with one. From the moment
they faced one of these steel giants in combat; Nausties would
clearly be outmatched.

But that
wasn’t all, it turned out. Earth generals entered the war with
quite an amount of intelligence about New Australia’s interior.
After all, the entire mine network; at its height of development,
was designed and built by Earth mining engineers years ago. Frankly
they knew the entire original layout of the planet’s core and
underground system of tunnels, elevator shafts, and caverns. They’d
built it; and knew basically where to go find the Nausties down
there. These plans were all shown to Earth generals; and most
operators of the Tunnel Tanks had at least a rudimentary knowledge
of the mine network. Well, at least they carried a mine network map
inside their tank's command bridge if they ever needed
it.

Earth generals
believed their forces could operate below the surface for months if
need be and in the view of most all at Fleet Command, it was only a
matter of time before they’d achieve absolute victory. Forward
units were instructed to eliminate all resistance and then to
exterminate all living creatures they could find. No one was to be
spared. If it breathed, soldiers were to kill it. Those were their
orders. Meanwhile, supply channels were established to keep those
forward units well-supplied and constantly moving. The onslaught
needed to be just as constant as it was brutal.

In the first week of
the ground campaign Earth troops moved virtually unopposed through
a hellish subterranean wasteland in the areas near the Service
Tunnel. Dead bodies were everywhere. Naustie army units simply had
no solution for the tunnel tanks and wherever Earth tanks moved the
Naustie army fled, telling every Naustie villager in their path to
just flee to unoccupied territory. The previous strategy of forcing
the enemy to capture tribal homeland after tribal homeland in
exhaustive engagements was clearly no longer feasible. Airmobile
troops simply spilled out the back of these metal beasts and
rampaged through village after village destroying caves and homes
with explosives or riddling them with bullets. Naustie civilians
caught within these areas were eliminated on site; and hiding out
inside burrows or dugouts did them no good either. Earth troops
with infrared sensors could detect body heat and “see” life forms
hiding behind rock formations. Tunnel tanks would just drive right
through whatever they were hiding behind, and mercilessly roll
right over them.

Casualties in most
engagements for Earth forces were rather light; and by the end of
the first week it seemed everything was going Earth’s way. Setting
ambushes rarely worked, except to kill four or five Earthers at the
cost of twenty or even a hundred Nausties in the process. Vlad and
his army could only retreat further below and try to survive
another day. What’s more; the fifty Earth tunnel tanks were able to
fan out and spread destruction in multiple directions, leaving Vlad
at a loss as to exactly WHERE to even counterattack them next.

They needed a better
plan and fast … or things were going to get desperate.

So far, the
reality to Naustie strategy was basically this: As long as Vlad was
able to harass and then flee the Earth invaders, it was giving
central command and Solomon’s team of Slart Planners precious time
to chart their movements and predict the directions and locations
of their next attacks. Ever so patiently and meticulously, the
Slarts were studying their opponent and learning their patterns of
attack and mop-up procedures. Clearly the Earthmen knew all about
the layout of the New Australia Planetary Prison and its mining
network; and clearly the tunnel tanks were moving in patterns that
indicated they were trying to also DRIVE the Naustie Army deeper
and deeper to a point within the core of the planet where all the
tank columns could converge for one last battle and annihilate
them. “The patterns of their movement,” the Slarts told Solomon,
“are forming a sort of spiral that looks much like a marble rolling
around the inside of a funnel.” What it looked like to Solomon was
that the Earthmen were actually hunting the Naustie Army now; to
try and finally trap and destroy it….

But reports came
back one day about an enemy tunnel tank which by accident
penetrated a volcanic vent shaft which basically ran from the
molten iron core of the planet up to the surface to some long
dormant volcano. This natural anomaly within the planet’s interior
had been “discovered” by miners only within the past few years; so
Earth mining engineers from years before could never have mapped
it. Naturally, the release of noxious gas from the vent quickly
cleared out the cavern of Earth troops who feared a volcanic
eruption! But what intrigued Solomon and his staff; was just HOW
did the Earth men not notice the increase in heat as they drove
closer to this vent shaft?

Naturally, as the surviving Earth troops and tanks retreated,
they created a cave-in which sealed off the shaft again. Naustie
Army units, when they retook the tunnel and Schpleefti village a
few days later, discovered this had happened and found where the
lead tank had accidentally smashed through the wall of the volcanic
vent and
plunged
thousands of feet into the molten core of the planet. Most
everyone at the time celebrated the minor victory. A tank had
finally been destroyed!

Yet Solomon
still had to pose this question, “Just how could they not notice
they were getting close to a volcano? The heat in that tunnel would
have been practically unbearable to an Earthman. Was it because of
those climate-controlled suits they were wearing?" The Slarts on
his staff thought about it for a minute. Solomon had raised a good
point. Naustie miners working near this area typically wore little
if any clothing at all; and the heat was so stifling at times that
they had to take breaks every hour to cool off, working only six
hour shifts to protect their health, most days.

However
…
these Earth men somehow didn’t notice the sudden increase in
temperature before they’d nearly set off a volcanic discharge and
opened up the depths of hell itself. Solomon had to ask his
colleagues bluntly, “Gentlemen, just what would have happened if
this had happened say… deeper and closer to the volcanic core?
Could they have caused…
an eruption
?”

A
month had passed now since the beginning of the campaign. Tens of
thousands of Nausties were now dead; and the Naustie army
had
been reduced
in size to a mere thirty thousand—or less depending on who you were
talking to. Earth forces were hunting them sure; but as the Slart
planners on Solomon’s staff observed, it seemed the Earthmen's
strategy was more of a systematic attempt at CORNERING them
somewhere closer to the bottom of the known mining network. Sensing
this, Solomon and his planning team met nearly day and night to
discuss plans for a final defense of the planet.

When and where
might it occur; and what would they do when there was nowhere left
to run? There were still plenty more tunnel tanks… still lots more
Earther troops. How would they fight them?

Many ideas
proposed were later determined to be infeasible, but some were
almost crazy enough to work. The discussion just kept circling back
to that doomed Earther tunnel tank which smashed through a volcanic
vent and then plunged to its own destruction thousands of feet
below into an infernal sea of liquid hot magma. That’s why Solomon
asked his planning staff, “If this tunnel tank had been a large
explosive devise… could this have caused an eruption?”

Luckily there
was one Slart on Solomon’s planning team—a rather diminutive
squid-like being named Cuttlefish—who really seemed to have a good
acumen for volcanos and eruptions. Cuttlefish had a vast knowledge
of major volcanic activity throughout the galaxy’s history, so he
knew what caused them. As a younger Slartigifijian; he’d actually
studied geology in college, which made him immensely valuable as a
prisoner working in the mines. But his big passion was the study of
volcanos. It had remained a hobby of his all his life.

As
Cuttlefish explained to Solomon and the rest of the team,
"I
f you want to
try to cause a volcano to erupt, you’ll need to do a few things:
First you must find a volcano that is already showing some signs of
magma instability. This might be high levels of volcanic gases,
shallow earthquakes, or deformation of the volcanic shaft.
Basically you want something “primed” to go. We have one such magma
chamber several miles below the surface and it’s located right
underneath one of our tribal territories actually….”

Cuttlefish then took out a grease pencil that miners often
used, and drew a cutaway diagram of New Australia. He drew a big
circle; then detailed the interior of it, showing the locations of
where they were standing in relation to this magma chamber. He also
marked where the tribal lands of one Pumalar tribe was located
nearby it. A volcanic vent did indeed lead right past or next to
this massive cavern where Pumalars had been digging out industrial
diamonds for the past several years. While he drew this enormous
diagram on a smoothed off section of cave wall at central command,
he continued to educate Solomon and the others on how a volcanic
eruption can be triggered:

“
Next you need to figure out a way to release the
lithostatic
pressure
that’s
‘keeping the cork on the bottle’, so to speak. This must be done so
that bubbles can form. Think of a bottle of carbonated beverage; or
even champagne. When inside the bottle and sealed, the liquid
appears to be dormant. Once the cap is released, the carbon inside
the liquid tries to escape rapidly or even violently. If we were to
set up enough explosives to “
remove
” this “
cap
” so to
speak, then this could create instability in the magma below. And
then finally we need to figure out how to get a lot of
water
into the volcano quickly … but not
too quickly of course."

As
Cuttlefish envisioned it, the eruption could possibly be triggered
much like the Indonesian volcano “Krakatoa” from Earth’s ancient
history
. This
disaster occurred on August 26-27, 1883 when a series of massive
explosions destroyed most of the island of Krakatau, Indonesia. The
eruption was equivalent to 200 megatons of TNT, or about 13,000
times the nuclear yield of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima
during World War II. One hundred sixty five villages and towns were
destroyed and over 36,000 people died—with many more thousands
injured. In this debacle, a series of Earthquakes finally led to
the rushing of sea water into opened volcanic vents; and the
resulting instability led to a series of horrific volcanic
explosions over a two day period.

Solomon clarified, "So then we can do it, can't we... I mean
don't we have all those things already? We’ve got explosives to
drop into the magma… we’ve got glacier water…." The wise little
Slart fluttered his facial tentacles pensively as he apparently was
pausing to choose his words carefully; but these things were never
really clear with Slarts. They didn't lie, however they also didn't
reveal emotions as easily as other species. "Technically, we do
Commander... may I show you more?" asked Cuttlefish dryly. Solomon
smiled slightly; and then patiently gestured for Cuttlefish to
continue. He realized the little creature was merely theorizing at
this point; and Slarts would never commit to an OPINION unless
they’d done meticulous calculations to determine its overwhelming
probability.

Cuttlefish said, "You see Commander, dropping a bomb into a
volcano doesn't really address the pressure issue because the
explosion couldn't possibly remove enough of the overlying rocks to
release lithostatic pressure. Drilling into a volcano would be like
trying to bleed a Pumalar to death with a single needle prick. Not
enough pressure would be released to really make a difference.
That’s why the Earthmen in the rest of the column marching behind
the doomed Earth tunnel tank did
not
perish in a volcanic holocaust, like we need to try and
create.” Cuttlefish then paused again and waited patiently for all
this science to sink in with Solomon. Out of respect, he waited for
his commander to ask any clarifying questions. Seeing none, he
continued: “However… here's how I believe we can do it...." Solomon
smiled. He had sensed all along that Cuttlefish knew theoretically
just how to cause a volcanic eruption and this was finally his
great moment to shine.