Space 1999 #5 - Lunar Attack (11 page)

‘I can’t get them away.’

‘What’s wrong.’

Before Morrow could answer, Eagle Three was on the net. ‘Eagle Three to base, I have no lift off.’

‘Base to Eagle Three. Stand by for controlled lift off.’

Morrow punched out the sequence three times in a row. Engines fired, held for a beat and faded.

Monitor screens covered all launch pads and Koenig saw another flight with rocket tubes flaring.

He said, ‘That’s better. Let ’em go, Paul.’

There was nothing Paul Morrow wanted more, but even as he brought the pilots on the command net, the vermilion fire balls had shrank away and the Eagles were grounded.

Morrow turned to Koenig. His look was plain. There was nothing he or anyone could do to get the Eagles away in time to do any good.

Grim faced, Koenig turned to Kano, ‘What’s the computer breakdown on that ship?’

‘Coming through now, Commander,’—he tore off a feed out strip and was so long looking at it that Koenig said impatiently, ‘Well?’

It was not going to please anybody and was playing into the hands of anybody who reckoned the computer was a high speed idiot. Kano read off, ‘The gyromagnetic ratio has an anomolous factor two when applied to electron spin. The Landay g-factor expresses the . . . That’s all there is, Commander.’

It was no help and Kano looked ashamed for his friend. There was more trouble on the big screen. The picture of the huge spacer was distorted and out of focus. They were blind as well as powerless.

Koenig returned to Morrow’s Command console and heard Carter, voice edgy and disgusted, ‘Eagle One to Base. Still no joy. What’s happening there?’

Koenig said, ‘Alan, we’re getting unusual interference. It’s bugging all communication systems—’ There was a growing crackle of static and Carter, seen on his personal monitor, was obviously having difficulty with reception. Taking it slowly Koenig went on, ‘It’s probably some kind of ultrasonic or magnetic emission that’s finding a harmonic of our control patterns.’

Only just audible, Carter said, ‘Eagle One to base. I do not read you. Repeat I do not read you. Come In base,’

Morrow made a refined tuning ploy and momentarily Carter was loud and clear, ‘Eagle One to base. For god-sake get your fingers out. You must get us lift off. We’re running out of time.’ A rising tide of static drowned out the channel.

Bitterly, Koenig accepted it. He had no other line of defence. Whatever the spacer was aiming to do, they would have to sit tight and endure it. He called sharply to Sandra, ‘Are the screens holding?’

‘Commander, I’m losing contact. I don’t know. They were all running at max, but now the monitors have gone dead.’

‘Keep trying.’

Events were crowding him. Helena Russell hurried into Main Mission, ‘John, I’ve been trying to get through. I have equipment failure in the wards. Can I have emergency power?’

Even as she spoke, the lights in Main Mission dropped to a low, red glow. Koenig said, ‘Paul. Emergency power.’

‘Yes, Commander.’

It was better, but it was still sombre. Lighting stabilised at half the lumen count they were used to. Main Mission was eerily full of shadows.

Koenig tried to make it sound as though he believed there was a chance, ‘If there’s any change and you can get the Eagles away, do that.’

‘Yes, Commander.’

Not deceived, Helena Russell said quietly, ‘How much trouble are we in?’

‘You tell me.’

She looked from the monitors to the big screen. It was the same story. There was nothing to see. Koenig picked up a pair of binoculars and they both moved to a direct vision port.

Outside, the familiar moonscape was still as death. Victor Bergman joined them. It could have been any day in the long succession of days on Moonbase Alpha. The racing spacer was still out of direct sight.

Koenig said, ‘I wish I knew what was going on.’

‘What do you see?’

‘Nothing.’

Bergman had a magnetic board with small models and held it out. ‘At least before the computer packed in I was getting some useful information on that solar system.’

Intellectual curiosity was a fine thing, but more than half Koenig’s, attention was on the window. Helena did her best, but she kept looking away at Koenig.

Victor Bergman, undeterred, warmed to his exposition—‘It seems that the sun is similar in size and characteristics to our own. The two planets are slightly smaller than Earth and each revolves on its own axis once every twenty-five hours, giving, presumably, a slightly longer day and a slightly longer night.’ He shoved the models round the board with a lecturer’s simple pleasure and went on, ‘Each planet revolves around the sun once every ten months in an elliptical orbit. They are always on opposing sides of the sun in relation to each other. Their summers would be shorter than ours, likewise their winters.’

He looked up, at a time when neither of them happened to be looking at him, ‘I’m not boring you am I?’

Helena, being kinder or less honest, said quickly, ‘No, Victor, of course not. But I’m too scared to concentrate.’

‘Being scared makes me talk a lot and get very cheerful.’

‘Lyle’s syndrome. Lucky you!’

‘Where was I?’

‘You’d got on their winters. Shorter than ours, you said.’

‘Ah yes. Otherwise their climate promises to be very similar to our own. What you said earlier on may well be a possibility.’

‘That we might have a choice which planet to settle on?’

Koenig said, ‘I wouldn’t put any money on that.’ His tone had them both looking at him. He said, ‘Only look at that!’

The giant spacer had crossed the horizon. One thing was clear, even if the Eagles had got themselves off the ground, they would have been useless against it. Watching it, Koenig said, ‘It seems to be slowing.’

Bergman asked, ‘Do you think they aim to land?’

‘Could be.’

Koenig called Morrow, ‘Paul, do we have any communications systems working yet?’

‘Not a thing, Commander.’

‘Computer?’

Kano answered for his dumb beast, ‘Malfunction, Commander.’

The monitor screens and the main scanner were still snowed over with static.

He tried Sandra Benes, ‘Any change on the defence fields?’

‘All negative, Commander.’

Koenig balled a fist and thumped the bulkhead. ‘Paul, keep trying the Eagles.’

‘Check, Commander.’

They heard Morrow doing his best, ‘Come in Eagle One. Come in Eagle One.’

There was no reply and no move from the launch pads. In the command module of Eagle One, Carter was calling on his own account, ‘Eagle One to Base. Eagle One to Base. Do you read me? Paul, can’t you get us off the deck? What’s going on?’

Satazius
herself answered him, crossing his line of vision and causing him to come near twisting his head off as he followed her with disbelieving eyes. She was the biggest moving object he had ever seen. His ‘Holy cow!’ was an amalgam of awe and astonishment. In utter amazement, he watched the spacer decelerate, hover over the moon’s surface, dwarfing the installations of Moonbase Alpha and then slowly sink down to a planetfall some two kilometres outside the complex perimeter.

Personnel in Main Mission were inexorably drawn to the direct vision ports, first Morrow, then Sandra, then the rest. They lined the windows watching the billowing clouds of moondust stir around the cliff-like sides of the monster.

The engines of the spacer cut out. Dust slowly settled. Except for the crackle of static, there was silence all round. Helena looked at Koenig, saw the tight line of his jaw and knew what he must be feeling. There was no light from the visitor. Nothing moved. It gave no sign of life; vast as a hill, it projected silence and menace.

Then forward towards the cone, there was a slight stir of movement and Koenig whipped up his binoculars for a closer look. Two hatch covers had slid open and massive extensor arms each carrying parabolic reflectors were edging out. From being a dead lump, the monster had developed a pair of giant eyes.

Midships, a whole area was on the move revealing a cavernous pit. Slowly, the dark gap filled with sliding structures and an enormous multi-barrelled weapon system jacked itself out of the belly of the ship. Out and clear of the superstructure, it began to turn on its axis until it was lined up in the direction of Moonbase Alpha. Mechanical arms working from moving gantries made refined adjustments to the trim.

The watchers backed slowly away from the windows. Only Koenig remained looking down the cavernous throats of the gun. It was unbelievable. It was an overkill of force, a sledgehammer to crack a nut. But command had its duties. Any order was better than no order. He rapped out, ‘Down! Everybody down! Where you are. Now! Prepare for nuclear blast.’

It triggered a flurry of action. As he dived down himself, close to Helena, he saw the others moving to it, lying with bodies slightly off the floor on toes and elbows. Bergman was still as a plastic gnome. Before he could check the others, the gun had fired a salvo and his main wonder was that he was alive to know it.

A deafening roar filled all space and Main Mission was vibrating to its foundations. Eye-aching light was pulsing through every direct vision port. Sandra was screaming, unheard even by Morrow who was only centimetres away. How long it continued no one ever knew. It was timeless, a suspension of living in a twilight limbo of pandemonium.

When it stopped, they remained for a beat too stunned to understand that it was over. Then, slowly they stood up, rubbing their ears, shaking their heads from side to side like bemused dogs.

Koenig stumbled to a direct vision port. The spacer’s weapon system had altered its angle of elevation. After getting direction it had shifted for a different target. He said thickly, ‘It wasn’t interested in Moonbase Alpha. It was firing over us.’

The idea took a little time to sink into his own head. He looked across the floor of Main Mission to the stairs and gallery at the other side. Bergman was ahead of him and raced for the steps. Helena caught on and was away. As he joined them they were already looking out of the direct vision ports.

Beyond the curving horizon of the moonscape, the new sun was blazing in a dark sky. On either side, a planet was clearly visible. A cloud of brilliant needles were on their way for a strike on the left hand planet. As they watched, they saw them zero in. Bright asterisks stippled the surface. A dark haze spread in a band like a new cloud pattern.

Koenig said slowly, ‘We must be in the middle of a war between two planets.’

Helena said, ‘But why?’

There was no need for Victor Bergman to refer to his model. He said, ‘Look at them. That tells you why. Those two planets are on opposite sides of the sun. They can never see each other direct, because of the size of the sun in between. They can’t fire directly at each other, because any kind of missile would be drawn in by the sun’s gravity. So the arrival of our moon has set them up with a ready-made gun platform. Right, John?’

‘Right. And that makes as Number One target for Planet Number Two.’

He used his binoculars for a scan of the cloud wracked target planet. It was rough and ready, but in this war of giant equipment, movements stood out. He was not wrong. A brilliant dot glowed momentarily on the planet’s surface.

‘Here it comes.’

How much time they would have was anybody’s guess. He whipped to the balcony rail, shouted for Paul Morrow, ‘Paul. All non-essential personnel into deep shelters. Go.’

A slim pencil of light was probing out from the left-hand planet. Morrow was doing his best with an all-sections call. ‘Attention. Attention all sections Alpha. All personnel into deep shelter, immediately.’

To his personal staff he said urgently, ‘Sandra, Kano, you too. Get down there.’ There was opposition. Sandra for one had no intention of leaving and the time ran out. Koenig, on the balcony, grabbed for Helena and Bergman who were watching, hypnotised, and threw them to the deck.

Every direct vision port in Moonbase Alpha flared with intense white heat. Main Mission was illuminated in a hard glare that etched every item on the retina as though on a photographic plate. A deafening roar vibrated the very deck. Outside, a pencil of light had homed in on the spacer and struck the ground close beside it, excavating a vast new crater on the ancient Moon and shifting even the huge bulk of the ship in a sideways lurch.

Gleaming sides blackened, smoke and vermilion flame pouring from open ports, the spacer looked less of a threat. Koenig on his feet again to his own eternal surprise, watched the dust settle. This was a wreck on their island. Maybe, if the hot war cooled, there would be useful gear to salvage from the hulk?

Others were dusting off and moving about, still dazed and uncertain. Suddenly, the lights in Main Mission brightened to full strength. Helena Russell paused on the stairs. The big screen was back in business. Crystal clear on their black velvet backdrop, the sun and its attendant planets dominated the star map.

But the personnel of Main Mission were still lined up at the direct vision ports looking in awed silence at the stranded leviathan. She joined Koenig, ‘What happens next?’

Before he could answer Carter’s voice was coming in from the Eagle Command console, ‘Eagle One to Base. Eagle One to Base. Do you read me?’

There was a scatter back to the desks. Paul Morrow was first home and ready to go, ‘Base to Eagle One. I read you. Come in Eagle One. How are you?’

‘I’ll never believe it, but all in one piece. Is the shooting match over?’

‘Looks like it for the moment’

Koenig was behind Morrow. ‘See if he has lift off.’

‘Eagle One prepare for lift off.’

Carter could be seen on his monitor, methodically going through the sequence of pre-flight checks. Satisfied, he said, ‘Eagle One ready for lift off.’

‘Eagle One. You are clear. Go.’

The motors delivered in a flurry. Eagle One jacked itself off its pad.

Koenig said, ‘Alan, go look at that spacer and report on damage. Not too close. Any sign of trouble—pull out.’

‘Copy.’

Eagle One hovered, picked up a course and was away, keeping low over the moonscape as it darted in to the smouldering, mountainous hulk.