Legacy (2 page)

The destruction of the large moon Ophillias had been intentional. The ignition of its mineral mines did just what the planners of the final solution had intended. The enemy fleet and their devilish mechanized invasion troops were blotted out in a nanosecond of stunning violence. Only things didn’t go as planned; they seldom do in wartime. Instead of the eruption taking out only the mineral mines and the enemy saucers in orbit around the moon and their home world, the moon had been shattered. First the mineral deposits ignited. Then the core of the moon, rich with energy, had exploded, slamming the nearby home world and this, the lone surviving moon. First one world and then its larger twin were hit so hard with debris from the exploding Ophillias that their orbits had been ripped apart, while the home world was sanitized of all life and pushed deeper into space. Entire cities, oceans, and continents were wrenched into the vacuum. The other blue and still burning world with its small moon, Phobos, was nearly thrown into the sun. It was now the third planet in orbit around the large star.

*   *   *

The large man thanked the heavens above him that this desolate and barren rock was only a brief stop before the planned jump to the giant blue and green colored world 240,000 miles away. The new orbit taken by that world and its moon was still unstable, but the survivors of their race had little choice in the matter. They were going to call it home, volcanic environment or not.

The helmeted man, standing on the edge of an enormous crater, stared upward into the face of what would be their new home. The days it had taken for the surviving warships to follow this rock and the giant volcanic world below to their new orbit had been harrowing, but the new orbits had finally stabilized just as their scientists had said they would.

In a billion years, the great world below could possibly have become a twin to their home planet. He could see its single great supercontinent, partly hidden beneath billowing white clouds. The man could even make out its hundred thousand volcanoes spewing fire, gas, and steam. This world was a familiar giant that once was so close to their home world that they could see its oceans moving at night through telescopes. Now it was the only planet within ten light-years that had breathable air. The scientists at the base were saying that the great landmass was still in motion, destabilized by the sudden push toward the sun provided by the explosion of Ophillias.

The man looked away and down, kicking at the dust that covered the old moon as its new parent watched over it. He knelt and retrieved a piece of rock that didn’t belong on this moon’s surface. As he examined it, he knew it was the one element that had been their deliverance in defeating the invaders—Trillinium, an amazing ore that when laced with oxygen and water produced vast amounts of pure, clean energy. That energy had allowed them to create new light weapons that had proved invaluable in the fight with the saucer people and in the end it had become the instrument that destroyed both the defender and the conqueror. He rolled the stone over and looked at it. Then he took a deep breath, though it sounded hollow and empty in his helmet.

He knew this moon would be inundated with massive amounts of ore from the Ophillias explosion, as would their new home on the hostile planet below. Perhaps on their new world they could recover some of the magical ore and put it back to work producing energy.

The man let the small rock slip from his fingers and fall into the lunar dust. He wasn’t used to regrets, but he had come to learn that even a man like himself, someone who always looked forward in life, could not ignore the fact that they had destroyed their own civilization.
Oh yes
, he thought,
he was capable of regret
.

The three remaining battleships of the home fleet were in orbit around the moon. He could see them high above as they made their hourly circuit across the inky, star-filled sky. They were only small specks of light, but he knew them for what they were, the last haven of a self-vanquished people whose home world was now void of air and sea, a rotating ball of red dirt orbiting the same star as the hostile planet he now looked upon. Sister worlds, one smaller than the other, ripped apart like conjoined twins, killing them both. He kicked at the chunk of Trillinium, sending the rock out into a low trajectory. He watched as it sailed through the airless environment and landed a hundred yards away.

He shook his head and looked at the readout on his sleeve. The needle indicated he was starting to run into his oxygen reserve. He glanced up one last time at their future home and knew this would be a good place to salvage what remained of their civilization.
Hell,
he thought,
it’s the only place
.

As he started down the steep slope feeling the pain of guilt once more as he had on other days since that horrible moment when his own red planet had come to an end, the man slid to a stop and reached over to his left shoulder. He pulled the small flag from his suit, not caring that he risked damaging the vital material that protected him from the harsh environment. He looked at the small flag and its four circles representing the great society of twin planets and their two moons. He smiled without humor and allowed the stiff material that made up the flag to fall through his gloved fingers to the gray dust at his boots.

He shook his head inside his helmet as he continued to make his way down the crater’s side.

“Gideon, are you receiving?”

As he reached the bottom outer wall of the crater he pushed the transmit button on his wrist. He started whistling and spitting, blowing air through his pursed lips. “I—unable—radio—static—”

“Knock it off, Gideon, I know you’re hearing and transmitting just fine. The computer says you’re low on oxygen, so you’d better get back. Things here are starting to get weird.”

Major Gideon smiled at hearing the sweet and calm voice of the youngest member of their lunar team. Lydia was cute and sassy, but had a no-nonsense streak that was suffocating to men like himself. But she had the cutest pointed ears of any woman he could remember.

“Yes, mother, I am very capable of reading an oxygen gauge.”

“Hmm, you could’ve fooled me. It seems I have to remind you on a daily basis. Dr. Joshua says you could hurt yourself if you get low on O
₂
every time you go out on your little strolls.”

“I get the drift, Doc,” he said as he heard Lydia talking with someone on her end. Apparently she had inadvertently left her transmit key on.

“Major, I have a request from Professor Remiss to observe the eastern quadrant as
Guidon, Vortex
, and
Ranger
pass overhead. He wants you to measure their orbits with your laser range finder. Ours is malfunctioning at the moment along with everything else. Radar and sonar echoing is down also. Can you manage that while in transit back to base?”

Gideon heard the request and froze. He frantically looked at the timepiece on the lower portion of his left wrist and then back at the western sky. It was barren, devoid of anything but the immense star field.

“Damn!” he said, as he bounded forward using the elongated hops he had come to be very efficient at. He saw the deep crater that housed the base a quarter mile away and knew it would take him forever to get there. He should have recognized what was happening when he had seen the ships only moments before, but he was daydreaming about the planet below and hadn’t made the connection, a sign that he was starting to lose his edge since the war with the barbarian species had ended.

“Lydia, get an emergency call out to the battleships. They have company coming their way from their stern.”

“What are you talking about?” Lydia asked, confused, possibly thinking Gideon was joking because they all knew the enemy and their fleet of saucers had been incinerated along with Ophillias and their home.

He continued his loping strides, the lighter gravity of the lunar world making him fast and light. “Damn it, Lydia, I just saw three ships pass overhead not five minutes ago. They couldn’t have been ours. Our three aren’t due for another ten minutes. I’m betting it’s three enemy saucers!”

“Oh, God—”

“Hit the emergency klaxon, get a call to
Ranger
, and then get the scientists and other personnel into the deep bunkers!”

There was panicked chatter on the radio, but Gideon ignored it as he fought his way toward the white shimmering base hidden in the crater ahead. He feverishly hoped that Lydia could get the men and women of the lunar science teams into the four-mile-long bunkers beneath the complex where the bulk of their technology and food was secured.

As he leaped from spot to spot he kept glancing spaceward, hoping to find their three warships still safe in their orbits.
How could three enemy saucers have escaped the destruction of their home world?
he thought as he tried in vain to lengthen his strides. They had thought the entire enemy force and their orbiting fleet of saucers had been incinerated by the suicidal act of destroying Ophillias, but now he knew that assumption had been wrong.

He had to stop. He went to his knees because he was finding it hard to breathe. He looked around as the moon became a wavy and jumbled relief of gray and white. The mountains in the distance shimmered and turned to haze. His head was hurting and he was now struggling for air. Gideon had the presence of mind to look at the O
₂
gauge. The illuminated numbers and their backup needles jumped in his vision, so he brought them closer to his faceplate. He saw immediately that he had gone past redline on his reserve and knew he would never make it to the base. Loud and jumbled chatter pierced his ears as he slowly slid over onto his side. He should have known how much faster he would use up his oxygen by running. He tried to stand but only managed to roll onto his back, his survival pack digging into the soft soil. He felt himself let go mentally. He closed his eyes and waited for the end.

“Fool,” he said with the last breath he could muster.

“Fool!”

He heard the echo and was confused. He smiled as his self-deprecating curse came through the speakers in the side of his helmet.

“I told you, but no—you have to take chances!”

As his eyes started dimming around the edges, he felt himself rolled onto his side and then jerked into a sitting position. He heard a slight hissing that hadn’t been there a moment before. Cool air rushed into his helmet. He came around as the headache and agony in his extremities started gnawing around the edges of his brain, and then directly behind his eyes, fingers, arms, and legs.

“Maybe you’ll listen to me from now on you idiot!” the voice said as he was shaken roughly.

His eyes opened and he saw the helmeted person kneeling at his side. He swallowed, trying in vain to get rid of the cottony taste in his mouth as he stared at his reflection in the gold-colored visor. He saw a small, gloved hand reach out and lift the outer glass of the helmet. Then he found himself staring into the soft features of Lydia. She wasn’t smiling as she raised one of the empty tanks she had pulled from his backpack, then brought her arm back and launched it away into the light gravity.

“Next time I’ll just leave you out here, Major.”

“Okay, okay,” he said and then remembered what was going on. Before he could ask about the status of the situation he looked up and saw three bright dots taking form just over the eastern horizon at about a hundred miles in altitude. He struggled to stand.

“Take it easy. Do you want to pass out? I can’t carry you all—”

“Look—our ships,” Gideon said. He pointed skyward and at the same time lowered a middle visor in his helmet that magnified the image of the three ships far above them.

Lydia turned in her overlarge suit and saw the bright specks of
Vortex, Guidon,
and the much larger
Ranger
as they hurtled on.

“Damn, they’re still running in formation. Didn’t the base contact them?” He turned an accusing eye on the young scientist.

“Everything is down, radar, sonar, communications, everything. I told you things were getting weird!”

“I should have known,” Gideon said. “They’re not down, they’re being jammed, and I should have realized that.” His eyes never left the three ships flying in a wedge formation toward the base. Their altitude wasn’t even staggered. They were still about a hundred miles high and sailing wing abreast, the two smaller pocket battleships slightly behind their flagship,
Ranger
.

“Maybe—”

That was as far as she got as Gideon grabbed her and pushed her to the lunar dust. As he did so, the pocket battleship on the left side of the formation erupted silently into flame and floating debris. The eeriness of the enemy strike was so sudden and quiet it was surreal. Gideon saw another salvo strike what remained of the smaller pocket battleship
Vortex,
and her sizzling hulk vanished in a white hot explosion that sent chunks of lightweight metal flying in a torrent of faster-than-sound missiles of aluminum and plastic. The debris struck the lunar surface far below, sending up enormous geysers of dust and rock. The two remaining battleships were caught unawares and reacted far too slowly after taking hits from the explosion.
Ranger
started her turn, her bow thrusters firing at full throttle as she started to slow, and then
Guidon
did the same a moment later. Both were attempting to turn and face the sudden and unseen threat. The major shook his head, knowing they would be too late.