Space 1999 #5 - Lunar Attack (12 page)

Watching through binoculars, Koenig listened to Carter’s SitRep. ‘I’m circling her now. Looks knocked out to me. Nothing stirring.’

Eagle One disappeared out of sight round the far side. In the exposed underbelly a dark area winked open as iris eye shutters sliced away. Koenig’s reaction was instant, ‘Paul. Get him out of there. Quick!’

Morrow’s call followed urgently, ‘Base to Eagle One. Pull out, Alan. Pull out!’

Eagle One completed its circuit arrowing away for base, ‘Copy. But what goes? It looks clean from here.’

A small excursion module had dropped out onto the surface and was trundling out in the direction of Alpha.

Koenig said, ‘Paul, Sandra, try to make contact. Kano, test for any kind of radiation or emission.’

Helena said, ‘We’ll soon know. It’s coming here.’

‘I don’t like it.’

There was no doubt about its destination. Picking its way over every obstacle, the buggy was on an undeviating course for the complex.

Bergman said, ‘It’s a life raft.’

Taking a professional interest, Helena said, ‘If they have injured, we could help them. But where would that put us with the other planet? Help and comfort to an enemy?’

Bergman put it to Koenig, ‘Helena has a point. Are you going to let them in?’

‘How else can we make progress and find out what’s going on?’

‘It could be dangerous.’

‘I don’t think there’s too much risk.’

Still uncertain, Helena asked, ‘Why?’

‘Because they didn’t fire that cannon at us when they could have done. Paul? Sandra—any contact at all?’

They answered in a duet, ‘Nothing, Commander.’

‘Kano?’

‘No radiation hazard. All clear.’

‘Paul, open the atmosphere lock at launch pad ten.’

‘Check, Commander.’

‘Keep Eagle One aloft until the capsule is inside the lock. Have three Security details standing by. Victor, Helena, with me. We’ll take a look at our visitors.’

As though briefed by ESP, the alien module veered off for launch pad ten and docked itself in the open lock. Hatches closed and pressurisation began.

Koenig’s party whipped out of a travel tube onto the apron on the inner side of the lock and deployed in a semi-circle. Koenig, Bergman and one guard had drawn lasers.

On the wings, the remaining two guards dropped on one knee and aimed rocket blasters at the closed hatch. A sweep hand showed pressure equalising. Seconds ticked off and tension mounted. Whatever was behind the bland bulkhead, had to be something special. The size and sophistication of the wrecked spacer guaranteed it. And it was in the cards that lasers and rocket guns would be outclassed. They would look like a bunch of primitives shaking clubs at a tank.

The sweep hand zeroed with a definitive click and the airlock began to open. Koenig said, ‘Stand ready,’ and took first pressure on the firing stud of his laser.

The hatch was fully open. The figure that stepped out was as surprising in its way as any they might have expected. Sheathed in black leather, with a black helmet and a dark visor hiding her face, Dione moved through the gap like a dancer. It was a hominoid type and a female hominoid at that, slim and shapely, with fluid, elegant movements, as she recognised the menace of the welcoming hardware and made it plain that she was only taking off her helmet.

As the visor tipped away, dark, silky hair spilled out. Biological engineering had hit a jackpot. The face was vivid, intelligent, a sure-fire winner for any beauty contest in the Galaxy,

Helena Russell, used to carrying an attractive body around, felt suddenly dowdy and diminished. Koenig, slightly stunned, could only look in silence. It was left for the visitor to open the dialogue.

She spoke to Koenig, having coolly identified him as the local top hand and the voice was well modulated, with sexy harmonics that were not absolutely suited to the text.

‘Please, for your own sake, you must do as I say. Our enemies on planet Delta are about to launch an attack. If they know I am here, they will destroy you.’

Sitting between Koenig and Bergman at the conference table in the Command Office, Helena Russell looked across at the trim alien and had to work at it to keep an open mind.

Diane’s faultless beauty had swung its velvet cosh at every male head on Moonbase Alpha and she reckoned somebody ought to stay rational. But she could concede that Dione was something special as a human being and tried to discount personal prejudice. Ostensibly, Koenig was running an interrogation session, but even from his profile she could see that he was in a state of visual shock and she would have liked to take a hack at his ankle.

He asked the question, ‘Who are you?’—with the unspoken rider that no reasonable man could expect to see another one quite like her.

‘My name is Dione—’ the voice was an aural caress. ‘I am the Commander of the gunship
Satazius.
My ship is inoperable and I am the only survivor. Thank you, Commander, for taking me in. I could have lived only for a few hours in my escape capsule. May I say it was not our intention to involve you.’

‘But you did. And right now we are smack in the middle of your war.’

‘Regrettably so. We were only concerned with using this wandering asteroid as a site for our gunships. We calculated your approach and planned carefully for a pre-emptive strike against our enemies. We hoped it would be quick and decisive, but it seems they anticipated our plans. Somehow, they were ready for our attack.’

Helena Russell said, ‘Enemies usually are,’—and got a shrewd look, which only she appreciated, from the brilliant kohl-rimmed eyes.

Dione went on, ‘Commander, you will understand the problems of fighting a war from opposite sides of our Sun. We have no direct line of fire to our targets. We needed a base outside the system to be able to bring massive fire power to bear. Many years ago, we tried to use a passing asteroid as such a base, but we were unsuccessful: it was too small for our purposes.’

Koenig seemed content to listen to the musical voice and Helena spoke for the home team, ‘Many years ago? How long have you been at war?’

This time Dione kept her eyes on Koenig and only answered obliquely, ‘We have always been at war.’

Koenig’s commlock bleeped at his belt and he snatched for it impatiently. Sandra’s face looked up at him from the palm of his hand. He was thinking that in some ways she was a blurred and imperfect copy of Dione, when she said, urgently, ‘A spaceship approaching, Commander.’

Her face disappeared and was replaced by Morrow’s, ‘Shall I launch the Eagles, Commander?’

Before Koenig could reply, Dione was speaking swiftly, ‘I told you they would attack. But they will not attack you, if
you
do nothing to antagonise them. Do as I say. You must not get involved.’

‘Involved? We are involved. I can’t just sit here and do nothing. I must at least take up defensive positions.’

‘You must remain neutral.’

‘I’d love to remain neutral, but it’s not my idea of neutrality to be a sitting duck for all the combatants.’

‘You will not be shot at if you do not interfere.’

‘How do I know that?’

‘Because I tell you, I have been right so far have I not?’

The reasoning in that was beyond Helena and she raised her eyebrows. But the man had eyes only for the spectacular alien. Koenig was already havering, ‘I hate doing nothing. But what choice do I have? What else can I do? Nothing.’

He spoke decisively into his commlock and Helena Russell could have sworn there was a glint of old-fashioned triumph in Dione’s eyes. ‘Paul. Hold fast. Keep the Eagles at standby alert.’

Leaving the table, he strode over to a direct vision port. Helena and Bergman joined him. The very fabric of Moonbase Alpha was beginning to vibrate and a deep thunderous, roar was building.

Dione did not move. As composed as a bust of Nefertiti, she watched the reactions of the trio at the window. The new spacer was every centimetre as big as the first and dwarfed the base as it hovered a kilometre outside the perimeter.

To Helena, it was on a totally inhuman scale. It must be a drain on a planetary economy to use its resources to build such monsters. They should have better things to do. There was also something incongruous about finding Dione as the supreme commander of one. Inside the envelope of flesh that was sidetracking John Koenig, there must be plain steel and a shrewd, calculating brain. On the same reasoning, whatever Dione said ought to be looked at twice. She was not to be trusted.

The spacer was down. If the sequence went on, Moonbase Alpha would be ringed by a man-made mountain range.

Dione’s voice broke the silence, ‘Commander, if you will allow me a communications link I will contact my Military Command and call up reinforcements to protect your base.’

The external threat seemed to have cleared Koenig’s head. Some of his frustration spilled over into his voice as he said, ‘Protect Alpha! What do your people care about Alpha? You send up reinforcements. They send up reinforcements. You fire at their reinforcements. They fire at your reinforcements. Where does that leave Alpha? We’re the little guy in the middle. I’ve heard that one before. It isn’t on. This is not our war.’

Even as he said it, he recognised there was little left to him in the way of initiative. He was the unarmed peasant, shaking a hoe at a couple of baronial armies who wanted to stage their battle on his field. It was humiliating. It was no help, either, to have a fugitive from one camp queening it his hut.

Face sombre, he watched the spacer go through the motions of setting up its multiple tube launchers. As the loading arms finally retracted and the strike system was ready to deliver, he shouted, ‘Everybody down! Move!’

Needles of intense light flared from the gaping mouths of the cavernous tubes. Main Mission was in a flicker as Moonbase Alpha was lit by successive flashes. It was the
Satazius
bombardment acted out again and Koenig wondered how long their ears could take it. The deck was in a tremor. Noise was stupifying.

The difference for Helena was purely personal. This time, Bergman was lying beside her. Koenig had gone part way towards Dione, who had gone down in a lithe dive and was looking trim and decorative, even as she took up the standard position for survival in earthquake or blast.

As the roaring slackened and died away, Koenig was quickly on his feet, moving towards Dione, but she was up and mobile before he could reach her.

Bergman helped Helena to her feet and she watched Koenig use his commlock to open the hatch to Main Mission and stand courteously aside for Dione to pass. He had not even looked to see if she was all right. There was not even an outside chance that Dione would trip on the top step. She thought bitterly that a man was no better than a duck and would follow anything with an eloquent wiggle.

Helena and Bergman followed them into Main Mission. Koenig was saying, ‘I hate watching this.’ It could not refer to Dione’s neat back and to be fair, he was looking over her head at the big screen.

Two security guards had scrambled to their feet and moved in on either side of the alien, whether to protect her or guard her was not too definite.

The planet Betha was crystal clear on the scanner. Needles of light were arrowing in for a strike. All watched, fascinated. Down on the surface there would be people. Young, old, the hopeful, the hopeless. There was nothing they or anybody else could do to avert the cataclysm that was coming their way at the speed of light.

The Alphans looked more concerned and horrified than Dione herself. She had a certain grim interest, but it was the interest of a commander. Napoleon on a knoll, watching a battalion get itself decimated for the public good.

A cloud mushroomed out and dimmed Betha’s shining disk.

Koenig said shortly, ‘Your turn next.’

‘Of course. My people will destroy the enemy gunship.’

‘Then, of course, they will send up another of their own to continue the battle!’

She was not to be trapped into any statement about strategy, ‘You would not expect me to reveal that, Commander.’

She was staring intently at the big screen and there was satisfaction in her voice as she went on, ‘Look. It is as I thought.’

Through the billowing cloud that was screening the planet surface, a bright pencil of light had stabbed out and was racing across the star map towards Alpha.

Held fascinated by it, they watched it halve the distance. Koenig said, ‘It doesn’t have to miss its target by much to score a direct hit on Alpha.’

Hooked by the sequence, they had been neglecting the resident gunship. Unexpectedly it loosed off another devastating salvo. Unprepared, the blast shook them like rag dolls. Hands to their ears, bent double, personnel in Main Mission staggered around like instant drunks. Light strobed through the direct vision ports in eye blasting brilliance. They were on their knees, folding to the heaving deck.

It ended as quickly as it had begun. For once, Dione had to move towards Koenig for communication. He was not even looking at her.

She said, ‘Commander.’

Banging his head to try to clear his ears, he made no reply.

‘Commander.’

No dice. He was still in the private world of the deaf. She touched his arm and the contact had him whipping round to face her. ‘Commander.’

It was getting through, though he was still having trouble and his own voice was faint in his ears as he shouted, ‘Have you considered what will happen if there’s a direct hit on this base? We have no atmosphere. Within minutes we would all be dead.’

The words were still ringing round Main Mission as Betha’s retaliatory missile homed on its target. The shock wave tore over Moonbase Alpha rocking every installation to its root.

Dione had a small holdfast on Koenig and he turned it to an all embracing, comprehensive grip as they lost footing and fell to the floor. He twisted himself underneath to break her fall. Hospitality could go no further.

Helena Russell, wearily picking herself off of the unpadded piece of deck she had found all by herself, sat down again. She hoped Koenig’s commlock had made a bruise, but then, the way things were going, Dione would have him putting a soothing pad on it.