Space 1999 #5 - Lunar Attack (14 page)

On that score, some were less convinced than others. Helena looked at him, eyes steady and serious, ‘Do we trust her?’

The alarm on Koenig’s console interrupted. He licked down a switch, ‘Yes?’

Sandra’s face appeared on the miniature screen, very anxious and bewildered, ‘Commander, it’s Dione. She’s gone.’

Koenig punched another key, ‘Paul, Security Alert. Find Dione.’

He was out of his chair and halfway to the hatch before Morrow answered and wheeled round as Bergman called him from a direct vision port.

‘John.’

‘What is it?’

‘Quickly. Look.’

Helena was only a step behind him as he reached the window. They could see Dione’s excursion vehicle making its bouncy way over the moonscape.

Bergman said, ‘I think we’ve found her.’

Koenig’s first thought was for her safety, ‘What’s she up to? She’s only got air for an hour or so in that thing.’

‘Looks as though she’s heading for the gunship.’

‘But why?’

There was no mistaking the intention. The capsule was moving in a straight line over all obstacles towards the still open hatch in the underbelly of the Bethan giant ship. They saw it reach the ramp, run inside and disappear from view. Behind it, the hatch lifted and closed.

Koenig’s commlock bleeped and Morrow called, ‘Commander to Main Mission. Urgent.’

Koenig was out at a run. Sandra had tuned the big screen for a close view of the Bethan gunship. The gantries and automatic loading arms were starting to move. As the full implication went home, Koenig’s face went from dismay to anger and horror.

Suddenly the picture changed and Dione herself was there at the control console of her mammoth ship. Without a check to the work she was doing, she said, ‘I am genuinely sorry, Commander. But my plan had to be carried through. This is war. We are fighting for survival. You look surprised. You should not be.’

‘But your ship was knocked out.’

‘Part of my plan. I waited for a near miss and detonated prepared charges. It worked as you see. Our enemies were deceived.’

The cold calculation behind it was too much for Koenig. He could only say quietly, ‘As we were. But why?’

What he wanted was a statement of principle. All he got was an outline of fact. ‘Very simple. We have an active gunship on your Moon. It is too late for them to get one here, so once again the advantage lies with us. I can fire until I am out of range.’

‘So the truce we arranged—everything was to gain time, all planned?’

Her smile had lost nothing of its brilliance, ‘All planned. Again, I am sorry. One does not behave nicely in times of war.’

She switched herself off and the multiple barrels of
Satazius’s
fantastic armament began to spit needles of flame. Main Mission was back in spasm under the shock waves of the thunderous barrage.

It stopped as suddenly as it began and Koenig, hauling himself wearily off the deck, grated out, ‘Get me through to Talos.’

Kano punched out the sequence. All hands watched the big screen as the Supreme Commander of Delta glowered down into Main Mission.

He said stonily, ‘You have broken your word.’

Facing the screen, Koenig said, ‘We have both been tricked.’

Dione had completed a recharge and the insane battery began again. It beat Koenig to his knees and he was swaying, hands over his ears when the salvo ended. Grimly he hauled himself erect to continue the dialogue. ‘We both thought the gunship had been knocked out. It was just a ploy to gain time, to take you off your guard again.’

‘The ceasefire is ended. The gunship will be destroyed and Alpha too.’

‘Talos, I am protecting innocent people. I must make you believe me. I have not broken my word. We have been deceived.’

There was a second’s pause as Talos weighed it. Staring hard at Koenig’s face, he said, ‘You are in a position to give me the exact location of the gunship. Give me its co-ordinates. Commander Koenig, make sure they are exact. This is your last chance.’

Helena watched Koenig’s profile. He was being asked to give the order for Dione’s execution. She saw his jaw tighten, but there was no hesitation. Voice harsh, he said, ‘Kano. Transmit the co-ordinates.’

He wheeled away and ran up the steps to look out at
Satazius
from a direct vision port.

On the scanner, the starmap was back in place. The farther planet was already beginning to slip behind the sun. But already more clouds were drifting across its surface and another series of brilliant pin pricks dotted its land mass.

Then, out from the confusion, a pencil of light thrust itself away and streaked towards Alpha.

Koenig turned from his window and looked across Main Mission to where Helena was standing. Wide grey eyes met his with sympathy.

He carried the look with him as a fixed image on his retina as
Satazius
began another salvo and they were beaten down again in the agony of noise and blinding light.

Nobody saw the pencil of flame home on
Satazius,
but Moonbase Alpha lurched under the shock wave and a rain of twisted metal débris rained down on the meteorite screens.

Koenig walked slowly through Main Mission. He hardly looked at the scanner where the solar system was dwindling into the starmap. As he passed Kano’s console, Kano said, ‘No further contact, Commander.’ He got a nod.

Morrow tried, ‘Evacuation procedure negative, Commander. Situation normal.’ Koenig nodded again and Morrow looked across at Carter who shrugged expressively. ‘Situation normal,’ for some reason had not yet reached the Moonbase overlord.

Koenig went on and made his moody way into the Command Office where he flopped into a low chair and sat staring at the hardware.

He was still sitting there, when Helena Russell came in to report. Taking a seat opposite, she kept it factual, ‘Five cases of mild damage to the middle ear. Nothing serious. No permanent damage.’

Koenig nodded, avoiding a direct look at her. She waited and finally he looked up and their eyes met. He said, ‘I wonder how we should have fared on Dione’s planet?’

‘Are you regretting that we didn’t go?’

‘No—just curious.’

Her eyes were telling him that it was all right. She understood what had happened and what it had meant in shattered illusions to be betrayed and to have to give the word for Dione’s death. They were also saying that it didn’t matter in any real sense to the relationship they had.

She said gently, ‘I’d rather take my chance wandering through space than be involved in a permanent state of war. Anyway the past is past. It’s too late now.’

She stood up to go and Koenig stood up. His hands went to her shoulders, a natural and satisfactory resting place. He said, ‘That’s right. It’s too late now. They’ve got their war. We have the whole of space out there to find ourselves a home somewhere.’

He pulled her close, her mouth was warm, tremulous and slightly salty. Rightly considered, they carried the basic ingredients of home around with them. Optimism, never long out of his mind, stirred again.

The Moon hurled itself on across the black velvet starmap, rushing them into their future. Helena’s fingers laced themselves round the back of Koenig’s neck.

Dione’s Ka, if it still roamed about the halls and covered ways of Moonbase Alpha, might well have raised a chiselled eyebrow at the simple games the expatriates of Earth Planet got up to. Strictly two-dimensional jigsaws had become a drug. There was a league table. They worked against the clock with all the dedication of early athletes trying to beat the four-minute mile.

Even Koenig found it a useful exercise to take his mind off the eternal responsibility of command. Alone in the Command Office, with the lights dimmed and a drink at his elbow, he allowed himself to become completely absorbed in a huge jigsaw of Earth.

The hobo Moon fled on. Moonbase Alpha ticked over quietly around him. He shoved in the last half dozen pieces with simple pleasure, straightened from the table and checked the time. It could be a record.

He finished his drink, turned out the table light and opened the hatch to Main Mission. Paul Morrow and Sandra Benes looked up from their desks as he appeared at the head of the stairs.

Koenig said, ‘It’s all yours. I’m turning in now, Paul.’

‘Lucky for some.’

‘Four-hours, fifty-two minutes and twenty seconds on the nose.’

Recognising that everybody likes to be appreciated, Sandra said, ‘Congratulations. I thought nobody would beat the five-hour barrier.’

‘Time we had a new puzzle.’

Morrow said, ‘Time we had a new world.’

‘Well, keep looking. Good night.’

Their ‘Goodnight, Commander’ chimed together and Koenig moved off towards his quarters.

Lights in connecting corridors had been dimmed. The illusion of night and day was preserved to fit in with long established rhythms. Only communications posts maintained their vigil with blank, waiting screens.

As he passed the post at an intersection, a low chatter of gobbledegook had him, swinging round in his tracks to check it out. As he reached the post, it was louder and he was reaching out to press the call key for Main Mission when the screen filled from edge to edge with a running frieze of hieroglyphs. Completing the move, he called, ‘Paul? Paul?’

There was no response. He tried again, ‘Paul, do you hear me?’

Koenig studied the screen. It was a very odd malfunction. Even if Computer had somehow crossed the channels, the figures racing over the screen were totally unrecognisable as anything that could have entered the memory banks. He flipped open his commlock to make the call and even the miniature screen was taking the same programme.

It was widespread throughout the base. Melita Janni, entertaining one of the pilots to an intimate jigsaw session in her bedsit, looked over his bent head and saw it on her scanner. Kelly followed her amazed eye and could make nothing of it, ‘What in hell is that, then?’

The same question was being asked in the medicentre. Monitor screens in the intensive care unit had gone over to the unintelligible signal. Helena Russell, doing a duty stint, heard the electronic mutter and left the jigsaw she was doing and looked in on her patient. The gibberish on his screen had her whipping out to the communications post for a trouble shooter. No dice, the fault was there also. She would have to go on foot and she opened the hatch.

Hurrying along the corridor, she met Bergman looking like a surprised chimp. ‘What’s happening, Victor?’

‘Either a practical joke—or something very exciting.’

Koenig had already reached Main Mission, where Paul Morrow and Sandra were surrounded by screens all bearing the same legend. No tuning ploy they could think of was having the slightest effect. It had overridden every piece of switch-gear and would not go away.

Koenig said, ‘Track it, Paul.'

‘It’s coming in on every channel.’

There was always old-fashioned direct vision and Koenig raced up the steps to look through an observation window. The well-stocked Galaxy was all there. Stars by the million. All seemingly minding their own business.

Main Mission was filling up as the full staff reported for duty. Helena and Bergman ran in and stopped short staring at the big screen. Koenig called across, ‘Someone or something is talking to us, Victor.’

Bergman spun round to track the voice, ‘What’s to see?’

‘Nothing unusual. This is one for you, Victor. You’d better get to work on it.’

Carter and Kano were in, checking their desks. Sandra Benes said suddenly, ‘It’s coming from somewhere along co-ordinate line three-nine-seven, Commander.’

Koenig came down to the shop floor and spoke to Kano, ‘See what Computer makes of it.’

To Alan Carter, he said, ‘Who are the stand-by Eagle crew?’

‘Wayland and Cousteau. They’re ready to go.’

‘Have them fly along three-nine-seven and see what they can find.’

‘Check, Commander.’

Carter flipped on to the Eagle Command net. ‘Eagle One—begin countdown.’

Wayland and Cousteau lifted off and swung away on course. Their scanner was a mass of hieroglyphs and the electronic chatter filled every channel.

Wayland recognised the problem he was going to have with communication. ‘It’s not going to let us get a word in. Let’s hope it has a pretty face.’

The same problem was being faced in Main Mission where every desk was manned and the complete crew was at stations. Koenig said, ‘Sandra, keep the scanners on Eagle One. Helena, monitor life signs. They’re the only contact we have. This gizmo seems anxious to talk, but I’d like to hear what Wayland has to say about it.’

What Wayland had to say was in fact non-scientific. Eagle One was boring in to a kind of aurora borealis. It was a light spectacular. Space had suddenly filled with a fantastic cluster of gossamer threads pulsing with coloured light like a fibre optic demo. Dimly perceived in the centre was a more substantial mass, a glowing orb that seemed to live and use the immense spread of tendrils as a vibrant, sensuous data acquisition network.

Wayland said, ‘It’s like a giant space anemone. It’s pulsating. I’ve never seen anything like it.’

He was crossing the outer limits of the phenomenon and a new feature developed. Vague shapes began to assemble round the superstructure like so many giant, coloured snowflakes.

In Main Mission, the flow of hieroglyphs across the screens was faster and the electronic accompaniment was reaching a crescendo. Impatient for some hard information, Koenig said, ‘Kano? Computer must be getting something from Eagle One.’

‘A continuous relay of data from onboard instruments, Commander.’

‘Analysis?’

‘No analysis yet. It’s still receiving.’

Suddenly all screens cleared. The electronic chatter reached a climax and cut. There was silence in Main Mission. Koenig called on the Command net. ‘Eagle One?’

They had Wayland loud and clear. ‘Commander? Commander, this is incredible. Outside temperature is increasing. There are strange shapes all around the ship . . .’

His voice was lost in a savage burst of interference and Morrow threw in every refinement he could use to filter it out.