by Perry Rhodan
A bit facetiously, Betty Toufry informed Rhodan, "Chaktor is wondering where in the name of heaven you dug up such crude, primitive equipment."
Thora burst out laughing. Rhodan looked at the alien, startled.
Reginald Bell took heated exception. What the hell! That's the most advanced micromin transmitter that we ever produced! What'd he say? Crude and primitive?"
Captain Klein started to grin as Rhodan, after a deep breath, concocted a diplomatic reply. "Betty, inform him that we obtained the equipment from underdeveloped savages for the purpose of exhibition. Tell him we thought of putting it in a museum."
Dr. Haggard could hardly conceal his amusement. Chaktor was put in his place as an inferior when he received the explanation.
"That was a bitter pill," said Rhodan. "Doctor, stop laughing—it could give us away. And as for you, Thora, you can get off that kick of trying to show how lost we'd be without Arkonide technology. After a while, you know, it might just set me off."
He plugged in the all stations communication system and stood in front of the TV receptor. "Attention! Commander to an hands! We're getting underway to make a short hop hyperjump—about eleven light-hours of distance. That will bring us out of hyperspace between the eighth and ninth planets of the system. You will maintain full battle readiness and disregard the slight sensation of pain during the transition. It could be that we may land in the middle of a full scale engagement. Lock on and fire permission for all weapon stations. Show the Topides your teeth if you have to. Major Deringhouse—stand by with Captain Klein for a launch manoeuvre. You will be shot out as soon as we arrive. Set your direction finders on the ships sensors so that you can find us again. In emergency, you will land on Rofus, the ninth planet Chaktor will announce us. You'll find a large city in the equatorial zone. Rofus is a Ferronian colony planet and it has only the one metropolis. That is all!"
Ten minutes later the Good Hope had reached the speed of light. The giant planet, number fourteen, dropped far behind. There was nothing to be seen, far and wide, of any enemy action. The interplanetary space of giant Vega seemed to have been swept clean.
7/
If they considered the previous space combat severe, they now found that they had jumped into a veritable hell. The disagreeable signals from the detectors were neverending. The Vega system seemed to swarm with ships, but it did not appear as though a friendly contest were going on between two advanced cultures. The suddenly appearing Good Hope was received by a shower of gleaming force beams. Before Rhodan had managed to recover from the pains of transition, the ship was already caught in cross fire.
The ninth planet of the Vega system shone from the viewscreens. At least the short distance transition had succeeded with a hairline precision. However, Rhodan would have preferred to emerge from hyperspace a million or two miles farther away. On the other hand, it might not have changed the basic situation very much. The uncanny battle ensued almost on a defined plane, but because of that, the contending units were spread ever several million miles.
Rhodan's shouted commands rang through the control room as Bell opened fire on the enemy. In the hellish noise of the ray beam impacts, the extended weapon turrets of the Good Hope went into action. The weapon control system was fully automatic. After each successful coordinate compilation and signal all Bell had to do was press a button. It was another example of Arkonide technological efficiency.
Under full power propulsion, Rhodan had brought the Good Hope out of the immediate area of cross fire from the bluish energy beams. Once again the extra-dimensional defense screen had shown that normal energy weapons could neither break it down nor neutralize it. But the raging discharges could not have been prevented. The shock of impact was so great as to be transmitted fractionally to the outer hull, along with high intensity thermal effects.
Apparently the Topides did not possess any light speed remote controlled weapons, or else they preferred to work exclusively with their ray projectors. As the strident clamor of a final hit rang out, the sound of their own weapons came through. In this respect the Good Hope definitely had more to offer than several Topidian battleships put together. As an auxiliary vessel for an exploration cruiser it was sufficiently armed for defense to give Bell all the choice of weaponry that a fire control officer required.
John Marshall had taken over the detector station. As the first line of the long, rod shaped spaceships fell behind the hurling Good Hope and the pursuing ray beams failed to overtake the swift as light ship, Marshall announced the appearance of the next units. They were more deeply deployed and were engaged in battle with a tremendous swarm of egg shaped spaceships in the midst of a continuous flashing of explosions.
"Change targets!" Rhodan called over the tiny radio phone system of their special helmets. Normal communication in this inferno of sound had become impossible. "We have to blast through or we'll never get out of this kettle. Thora give Bell a hand. Activate the gravity bombs. Let's see what they can do."
Bell glanced briefly to his left, where the Arkonide woman was taking over the control switches. Gravity bombs, he thought with a slight shudder. The most powerful weapon that the Arkonides had ever created. Actually they were not bombs in the true sense of the word. At least, he felt it was inadequate to refer to a light speed spiral field of stabilized energy as a bomb. These fields were extra-dimensional energy quanta with the remarkable characteristic of breaking up normal matter and tearing it out of the structure of curved space.
Red lights flashed on Bell‹s target screen. The automatic coordinators had spotted three targets. As he pressed the fire buttons, the three pulse cannons began to roar. Again the Good Hope was shaken by its own recoil. Violet traces of energy raced with absolute light speed through the eternal blackness of the void. They left the opponent no time for detection. Before their gleaming approach could be observed or detected by instruments, they were already at their goal. The enemy still lay about 1,200,000 miles ahead. After precisely seven seconds, lightning struck through the thick rows of the long Topidian ships. The hits were registered first by the hyperspeed field sensors. Then seven more seconds passed before the blinding flash of the explosions was visible.
John Marshall had taken over the heavy neutron ray projectors. Their effect was detectable whenever enemy space vessels fell out of their course and drifted helplessly through emptiness, due to the lack of hands at the controls. The ultra-concentrated neutron rays attacked only organic life.
Thora fired two gravity bombs. She saw the will-o'-the-wisp spiral disappear into the darkness. Two enemy units died in the midst of piercing blasts of light.
Rhodan had never seen this tall alien female in such a situation. Absolutely motionless, moving only her fingertips, she sat behind the fire controls of the terrible weapons, with only her eyes showing the inner fire that consumed her. Her uncompromising training came to the fore now, and she operated according to the maxim of the ruling Arkon Dynasty—enemies who oppose the almighty power of the Great Empire must perish.
In impersonal, metallic sounding tones, she spoke through the helmet phone. "They should know by now with whom they are dealing! They are hollow in their heads! They will he destroyed before they can get out of the way!"
Rhodan shouted a new series of commands. The curving course they were committed to couldn't be changed. The Good Hope was going to have to charge into the rapidly thickening lines of the enemy at full velocity.
"Deringhouse! Ready for launch!" he yelled through the radio phone above the noise. "Make a breach in the lines and then cover our flanks. Keep close to the ship—is that clear?"
Deringhouse avidly confirmed the order. He had not previously believed such events possible. While the Good Hope maintained fire in full flight and the reduced answering ray fire of the totally confused enemy was neutralized by the defense screens, the two fighter escorts carrying Deringhouse and Klein swished out of the launch tubes. They had acquired the velocity of the mother ship and added to it a much gr
eater manoeuvrability. They scattered from it at a sharp angle, and seconds later their built in bow guns began to flame. These were heavy caliber pulse projectors, which half filled the fast little airframes with their bulk. At only two light-seconds of distance from the Topidian ships, both fighters scored first hits.
Then the Good Hope was there with them and they raced together through billowing clouds of flame that had represented heavy spaceships but a moment before. Once more it was only a few seconds before they broke through the wide lines. All weapons concentrated their fire now in the area they had just traveled. The crew was subjected to an uncontrollable state of elation, augmented by the wildly raving Ferron, who greeted every shot with a shrill howl of delight or encouragement.
Rhodan knew the danger of runaway confidence. Such situations could change very quickly. The mutant Tako Kakuta must have read his mind. He pulled the blue skinned Ferron away from the screens and hauled him in front of the warmed up and ready long range radio phone equipment. Rhodan hit the control console with quick, deft hands. The ship's four running drivers increased the clamor of the weird battle.
"He must give his signal!" he shouted at Betty Toufry. "Quickly! His own ships are coming up ahead of us there. God, are they slow! I'm decelerating."
While the Good Hope slowed its light speed pace with the maximum power of its repulsion, Chaktor begin to speak rapidly into the microphone. It was still questionable whether he would be heard immediately. Because of their diminishing velocity, a strange phenomenon occurred. The ray beams of the far outdistanced Topidian ships, though slower than light, were now catching up. It could be seen how they pressed on closer and closer to the steadily decelerating Good Hope.
During the braking manoeuvre an elusive course was hardly possible, so Rhodan deliberately received the two hits with a stoic calm. The man without nerves; the commander who supervised with steel trap reaction and who missed nothing. The spherical ship began again to gyrate. In spite of the attenuation of distance, the ray beam impacts came with a jolt. But the thermal destroying force did not get through to the hull. The men at the power control station reported a temporary overloading of the separate current reactors. The high tension hyperfield gobbled up monstrous power yields, which could hardly be satiated even by the Arkonide equipment.
Don't get too rough!" Khrest moaned. "Remember that this is only an auxiliary vessel; it isn't a heavy duty cruiser!"
Rhodan laughed agreeably. Khrest had peculiar concepts of relative power and destructive effect.
Far behind the Good Hope, all hell broke loose. Thora had also brought the disintegration guns into play. These were capable of totally disrupting all crystalline structures, and their target strikes were soon registered by the untiring positronics.
"Breakthrough," Bell announced calmly. He was bathed in sweat. "Their defense screens can't measure up to a single one of our weapons."
"We've made contact!" cried Tako Kakuta, waving his hands excitedly. "Chaktor has contact! His people are aware of us now. We have clearance through their lines if we need it."
Rhodan turned. On the large screen of the visiphone the beaming face of an elder Ferron was discernible. Obviously it was that of a high ranking officer. Chaktor pointed across to the controls and shouted into the microphone. His words could not be understood over the deep thunder of the ship's weapons and the hard thrusting drivers. Only the two telepaths were able to pick up the gist of Chaktor's flood of thoughts
Through her helmet communicator, Betty put an explanation together. "It is the commander of the Ferron fleet. He is relaying the news of our arrival to the command station of the ninth planet. Chaktor is putting together a supplementary code signal that relates to us especially... Wait! The commander is making an urgent plea, that we keep giving him support in the battle. Perry, he says he's prepared to turn the entire command over to you!"
Rhodan cursed under his breath. The wild course of the Good Hope could hardly be halted in the front lines of the egg shaped ships. A deceleration of more than three hundred miles per second just couldn't be expected of the already overloaded drivers.
"Tell him to defend himself," Rhodan answered. "I will attack the enemy on the flanks and at a higher level. Tell Chaktor to advise that it's not possible for me to build a stable defense front with a single ship. Our strength can consist only of a running diversion."
Thus the dilemma occurred that Rhodan had feared in the background of his thoughts. The neutral observer who was only going to take a quick look at the situation had now become an active participant in events that, though not immediately endangering mankind, imposed a responsibility to take preventive measures and do what he could against the Topides.
They were not human. As this thought pressed itself forcefully upon him, he well knew that his very humanness demanded a part in the battle. For the first time in his life be understood the Arkonide motto, which said that non-human intelligences cannot be tolerated except in the rarest of circumstances. Nonhumans like this had a basically different ethic, an entirely incredible and alien concept of existence. If they appeared with malevolent intent, there was no alternative but an all out defensive effort.
The Good Hope was only a few light-seconds removed from the wavering line of Ferron ships when a terrible roaring emerged from the alarm system of the hypersensors. It was such a palpable thundering, combined with the shrieking loudspeakers, that the swishing light symbols on the data screens were distinguished, after one blinding flash.
Something of monstrous proportions must have shaken the normal curvature of the universe in the immediate vicinity. In the laminated defense screen of the Good Hope a coalescence flamed up. For several seconds the force field collapsed completely. The current reactors raced free without load. Intermittent discharges of lightning flashed from the overload breakers of the energy converters.
The highly sensitive warp sensors melted through. Their acrid stench filled the control room and moved Rhodan, in an instinctive appraisal of the situation, to order space helmets closed. The transparent spheres clicked into place in the magnetic collar rings of their space suits. Air conditioning, oxygen, and radio systems switched on automatically.
The Good Hope, traveling now only at a quarter of the speed of light, found itself instantly in an invisible energy discharge of unbelievable force. Blue fire engulfed the Arkon steel outer hull. Everything that the invading spaceships had thrown at them became as nothing compared with this mighty power.
Everyone heard a sudden shrill outcry. It broke through the space helmet speakers, kindling in the brains of the humans a spark of panic. Rhodan saw Khrest run to the hypercommunicator console. The Arkonide scientist began speaking into the lighted transference screen even as the trembling of the ship's hull subsided.
Until that moment, Rhodan had been occupied in maintaining some semblance of control over the Good Hope. Now suddenly he saw the monstrous shape of steel and energy that had emerged from hyperspace at best only thirty miles away.
"No!" he groaned. Then he yelled, "Thora, is that...?"
"An Arkonide battleship!" she interrupted hastily. "Imperial class, the latest design of the Empire. I'm thoroughly familiar with it. With one of those I could conquer entire solar systems. Perry, our people have come! Khrest is transmitting the recognition code signal. They must have found out on Arkon what was happening in the Vega system. Just look, Perry! An invincible giant with magnificent equipment and weapons. It must have a diameter of 2,400 feet, by Earthly measurement. I— What are you doing?"
Rhodan's knuckles whined as he gripped the step switches of the four main drivers. Blinking control lights indicated a 180 degree reversal of the field tubes. In the middle of the turning manoeuvre, the ship sprang into maximum flight Rhodan's face was drawn tight. Reginald Bell was the first to comprehend. His hoarse cry of warning rang through the radio coms. Only the two Arkonides continued to rejoice. But after a few moments, Khrest drew back from the hypercommunicator, deeply disturbed.
>
"No contact!" he cried out. "The main computer brain of the battleship should have responded at once to my valid code signal. I don't understand. What—"
"Haven't you realized yet that your Arkonide battleship is not manned by Arkonides?" Bell shouted impatiently.
"The spaceship is turning about, opening fire on the Ferronian defense line," came the voice of the mutant Ralf Marten, who had taken over the detectors.
Rhodan could do nothing more than he had already. The space giant, a product of the supreme pinnacle of Arkonide technology, loomed up ponderously in the wake of the fleeing Good Hope. In spite of its gargantuan size it arrived at an equal acceleration. When a violet bolt of lightning shot out of the great, massive sphere, it was far too late to dodge it. With the absolute velocity of light, the pulse ray was almost instantaneous. The battleship's fire control officer had not given the tiny auxiliary ship the slightest chance to escape.
The titanic ray beam was of the highest focused intensity; yet its cross-section must have measured a good 120 feet. If it had made a direct hit, the Good Hope would have been converted into atomized gases. But they survived the deafening clamor of the glancing blow. Crackling lightning discharges came from the collapsing defense screen, which had no resistance to offer such ravening forces. Degraded now to a mere speck of dust, the space sphere became a helpless plaything of a raging tidal wave of energy that the giant battleship generated by its close pursuit.
Perry Rhodan watched the indicators tell him that almost all machinery of the auxiliary vessel was suddenly ceasing to function. The echoing clang of bulkhead safety hatches closing also indicated that even the glancing blow had been too much. Before Rhodan was torn from his control seat he was aware of the force field main switch booming over. It was designed, in case of a catastrophe, to switch all emergency power into the inertial absorbers. If this had not occurred, no life could have continued to exist on board the ship, which had been torn with such powerful force from its course.
