by Perry Rhodan
The scoutship shot out of the cave like a bullet, Tifflor's solo attack was on!
The Gazelle zoomed with a mad acceleration toward the opposite canyon wall. In seconds it would crash against the escarpment that was a thousand feet thick. Wuriu Sengu already saw himself smashed in the wreck but when the death moment passed he dared look at Tifflor.
Tiff laughed but it was angry laughter. Attack!
The air howled and whined like a tortured creature around the Gazelle. Inside the scoutship the power generators screamed and the inertial shock fields revved. shriekingly to higher frequencies. The Gazelle all but grazed the sheer rock wall in upward flight.
Tifflor emitted a battle yell without being aware of his voice. He pushed the ship to its utmost and still at only 3000 feet altitude hurtled toward the end of the valley where a black wall loomed. The scoutship streaked faster, then curved to the left, the trajectory not quite as planned because insatiable energy consumers in the ship robbed the inertial boosters of peak power. Push the discus upward! It zoomed skyward toward the 12,000-foot escarpment.
Wuriu Sengu could not comprehend how anyone could fly at such a speed and still aim at the target, located on the other side of the mountain and far below, by the lake. After all, Tifflor had not seen the
alien spacer, either. Yet he exulted, "Gotcha right on my trackers, baby!"
The Gazelle swept above the crest in a hellishly tight Roller coaster glide—a trick Tiff had learned from Rhodan. Dive! There was the cylinder ship!
"Fire!" shouted Tifflor. Sengu pushed the gang-breakers in. All beam weapons of the scoutship fired in unison. A dazzling torrent of destruction shot into the depths and struck the spacer.
"No defense screen!" they both yelled at once, astounded. As the energy beams consumed the hull of the strange spacer, gradually melting it, there was not yet a sign of counterattack. The Gazelle's reactors howled to maximum to support the horrendous output of
the weapons. No reaction yet? Tifflor buzzed the alien vessel within 150 feet before turning. Simultaneously, Perry Rhodan observed the
reckless pullout and yelled, "Has Tiff lost his sanity?"
The scoutship flipped upward again in scorching speed then spurted vertically downward using full gravity. "Fire, Sengu!" shouted the lieutenant. The ground seemed to expand upward to meet them. The ugly bubbling brown spot on the skin of the spacer became a hole, A hole 30 feet in diameter.
"Fire, Sengu!" The deadly laser-like beams hissed from the funnel-shaped gun ports in the Gazelle. Inside the ship was a roaring of reactors, a clatter of relays, a hissing of high-tension fields.
"Rhodan!" yelled Khrest but heard Perry's counter cry, over his radio-com. "Well, the boy can fly!"
"Perry, look! Here comes the counter—Fire!" The cylinder ship now defended itself. Gun covers fell down. Tremendous funnels opened in a sudden flash. Now if any of the powerful rays were even to graze the Gazelle, it would disintegrate into a cloud of gas.
"Let's split!" was all Tifflor could hiss through his teeth but he laughed maliciously. He'd been able to see the cylinder ship's armament display at the last second on his excellent viewscreen.
Now Wuriu was given a lesson in what was meant by 'splitting'. Tiff took evasive action. He turned the Gazelle to its maximum efficiency and response. Under no circumstance must they offer a target to those massive ray batteries or they were lost. Their defense screens would implode under such fire like a pane of glass under a hammer blow.
There was a narrow cleft in the rock wall. Tiff canted the discus on its side. The cleft was about 75 feet wide according to his scanner. The Gazelle was 55 feet thick and that would leave a 10-foot clearance on either extremity if he sailed through it sideways.
"That's still thicker than a postcard!" yelled Tiff to the Japanese but by then they were through the slot, over the pass and back into the safe area once more.
"Tiff..." sighed the 'seer' but could say no more in the effort to wipe away the sweat.
"Guess I didn't have time for sweat," responded Tiff from behind his controls. "But you sure burnt a nice hole in that old bumblebee!"
The loudspeaker bellowed. It was the Chief, announcing the imminent arrival of Pucky. A second later the mouse-beaver appeared in the scoutship's control room. He opened the helmet of his custom-made spacesuit and chirped energetically, "Hi, guys! Where do you keep the firecrackers?"
"In the lower hold below the engine room," answered Tiff. "How are those robots doing?"
Pucky paused loftily on his way to the engine room. He assumed the required grand manner and declared, "How would you expect? After all, you know, I had a part in the action. As a matter of fact, I'm still trying to find one of those tin soldiers that can survive a fall from 15,000 feet. Until now it has been my observation that it has the effect of turning them into a pile of junk! Cheerio!" And with that he teleported to the bomb arsenal, having been a bit too lazy to walk there. Nor did he return.
Wuriu asked about him. Tiff manoeuvred the ship gently between the mountain peaks and grinned knowingly.
"I'll bet he's already laid his egg in the alien spacer and is far away by now. I've seen the little guy operate on many a mission. He always plays the big bird but he isn't like that at all. He knows exactly what he's doing and—"
The Chief radioed in again. "Tifflor, report here immediately. Then we'll move in on the Titan!"
• • •
Within the following 60 seconds fate struck a new blow. Tifflor brought the Gazelle to the rendezvous point with what seemed to be unnecessary recklessness. "Chief!" he yelled through the radio-com. "The hyper-sensor here is going crazy! Can't keep track of all the hypertransitions happening all at once—and I've got a slew of direct approach flights on the blipper!"
Perry Rhodan jumped on board followed by a worried Khrest. Pucky came in a teleport jump, as yet uninformed, and winked confidently at his colleagues. But his grinning little incisor tooth quickly disappeared when he heard Perry's grim tone.
Tiff! Put the Gazelle in Hangar Seven!"
"You mean—" Tiff swallowed, confused. "In the Titan?"
"Where else—maybe in the alien ship? That piece of macaroni is ready for the disposal. Come on, lets make it!"
It was only a short hop to the Titan but a big one in terms of what it involved. A jump to join 700 insanely infected men—a jump into the devil's dance of the bears! The airlock of Hangar Seven was open, which gave mute testimony to the early inception of the plague of madness among the crew. The Gazelle sat down without a shock. Tiff cut down all power banks and controls to zero, then looked questioningly at Rhodan. Perry drew his paralysis gun, significantly.
"We have to use these to open our way into the Command Center," he said, reluctantly, "It's too late for the hypno-guns. But here is a strict order: all spacesuits will be kept closed! If I see any one of you opening a helmet, I'll hit you with a paralyzer—is that clear? We don't know what time is left to get to the Command Center. That depends on those incoming spacers."
"But the robots!" protested Khrest. "They are still fighting!"
"So? That's what they were built for!"
Rhodan was the first to leave the Gazelle.
• • •
Pucky and four men had locked themselves inside the Command Center. They hoped to forget what it had cost them to get this far. No one spoke. Their task was obvious. The Titan was to be started up! Rhodan, Khrest, Tiff and Sengu—and of course Pucky—were going to attempt to fire up the mighty spherical spacer that was almost a mile in diameter.
Five instead of 1500 men. It was more than a deed of desperation. It was the unheard of—premeditated lunacy! Yet no one uttered a word. The Titan's big hyper-sensors reported new transitions. They materialized in fleet-unit groupings out of hyperspace, each jump being exactly calculated.
"The first ones will be here in 20 minutes," Tiff reported from the hyper-sensor indicators.
Rhodan's acknowledgment was almost imperceptible. He had
to coordinate thousands of details; he had to lift the great bird!
"Khrest! Give me your propulsion units—six, nine and 12! Why don't they sock in?"
"Power generators!" shouted Khrest.
"Reactors Alpha and Beta up!" chirped Pucky. "Second set waiting on turbine RPM level—soon!"
Tiff dashed from his tracking gear to help Pucky. Every vital control of the mile-wide sphere was gang-tied into emergency and manual-override mode. Wuriu Sengu felt lost in this vast, surrealistic chamber that bristled with a bewildering jungle of indicators and controls. Perry rushed past him to the inertial absorption field banks. He didn't curse and his face seemed relaxed but he was tense inside. He clamped bar multiples of switches together and shot them all home.
"Perry! All the power reactors are revved up to go!" called Pucky—thus proving again his amazing abilities.
The thunder of all idling engines was menacing. A fine vibration began to build in the giant sphere.
"Tiff! Over here!" yelled Rhodan. "Never mind the hypersensor—we know they're coming! Get into the copilot's seat"
The young lieutenant obeyed instantly, with no time to savor the honor of coordinating with his Chief.
"Keep it cool, Tiff," Rhodan encouraged in low tones. He was demonstrating again how he could inspire others to greatest daring, in spite of his own anxieties. He had a knack of casting his spell over everyone. Controls—controls—antigrav fields: clear—manual interlocks: green—all ship's apertures: safetied. Tiff was working 10 things at a time and missing nothing.
"Perry, the Honos!" Khrest's shout had to compete with the bedlam of awakened machinery, the growl of transformer banks, the oscillating yowl of energy coils, the high song of field generators.
The videoscreens showed the Approved Ones still sitting between the Titan's struts, still squatting there apathetically with their dull expressions.
"Sorry—" Perry was occupied with an intricate control switching sequence. Then he gave an order: "Pucky—get the Honos out of the way. Make sure it's far enough!"
Pucky had no trouble in plucking the Honos out from under the Titan's giant shadow. He simply tossed them to the other side of the lake—of course with gentle landings. "Mission accomplished, Perry!" he said within moments.
Busy as they were, all four men did a double take, staring at him. He met their gaze with casual ease.
"Well," he chirped, I had to make it fast. But they've landed over there without a bump. I'd say we're ready to let 'er rip!"
With this there was no argument.
"Lift-off!" ordered Perry Rhodan.
Banks of control keys seemed untenanted; empty seats faced glowing, unoccupied consoles. Beyond the locked steel doors of the Command Central, 700 madmen milled about, staggering from deck to deck in all sections of the spacer. Rhodan used both hands on the master gang-bar that simultaneously fired all propulsion units and energized the giant defense screens around the ship.
"There goes the cylinder ship!" yelled Sengu.
In the big panoramic observation screen the alien ship was seen to disintegrate in the air, the fragments drifting away like fallen dead leaves.
"Are those glowing dots what's left of the robots?" somebody asked. But no one replied.
Tiff shouted: "The 'tronicon is equalizing the operation, Perry!" Shouting was necessary to be heard above the hellish decibel bombardment of all equipment in full operation and now at last being synchronized by the automatic computer control. All sequence commits had been completed. The lift-off attempt with only four men was insanity. The conclusion seemed foregone. There wasn't any lift-off!
"What's gone wrong?"
Why didn't the Titan lift up?
Then the signal light flashed for synchronous contact. Green!
A vast hollow roaring superimposed itself over all other sounds and became a deafening voice of thunder. The Titan lifted off. They were on their way!
• • •
They soared into outer space after all! The giant spherical spacer hurtled outward at 50% speol, surrounded by its mighty defense screens but weaponless because no extra hands were available to man the firing positions. Those in charge were swamped as even the most sophisticated of computerized systems requires human assistance.
But the automatic tracking scanners were at work. Rhodan had found the extra split-second necessary to turn them on. Khrest emitted a groan of despair when he saw the horde of cylindrical spacers approaching.
Rhodan laughed. "There are more to come yet! That's only the beginning! They knew what pickings were waiting for them on Honur!"
The first attack came from the biggest of the approaching spacers: six direct hits shook the Titan. But the monster shook it off like water from a wet kog (canine-like Venusian creature) and kept straight on its course. Another ship would have been pulverized by this assault but the Titan's gigantic multiple-laminated defense hardly fluoresced under the energy absorption.
"Attacking units at 43 X, Y 70!" barked Tiff.
In a few minutes it became futile to report the new attack positions. They came from all directions at once. An inferno of energy beams bombarded the Titan's shielding without cessation. The screen fields had twice shown a peak of 80% capacity but they held.
"We won't be able to take many more!" moaned Khrest and then covered his face as eight more hits boomed against the shields, converting surrounding space into an orgy of light. Simultaneously the automatic tracking scanners revealed a new reading of still more transitions, 10 LIMS distant.
"Galactic gods!" shouted Khrest. "There are another 80 ships! Where are they coming from?"
"From hell," said Rhodan sarcastically. "Tiff, send a hyperspace-gram to Earth, pulse-coded as usual. Ask where the devil the Ganymede got stuck. If she's already en route, call Freyt directly. And while you're at it, don't forget to yell for help!"
Was this the end? Nobody dared even mention a hyper transit jump. With only four men to execute the complex fifth-dimensional manoeuvre, it was an impossibility.
The mouse-beaver took his leave from Perry. "These fireworks are getting to me, Boss. If you don't mind, I think I'll start some house-cleaning inside the ship—okay?"
The Titan vibrated from heavy hits coming from a new sector. Again from cylindrical spacers.
"Those must all be robot ships!" commented Khrest.
Rhodan nodded. Pucky took this for an answer to his request. He disappeared.
What Pucky meant by house cleaning was a separation of humans from their deadly pets. This required use of the paralysis weapon. It 'got to him' much more than the fireworks outside, to have to gun down his buddy, Bell, and his adored little Hannibal—but Bell had to be saved.
Tifflor had made immediate contact with the Earth. Terrania reported: "Ganymede en route..."
But the Ganymede itself cut into the communications. "What's going on out there?" Col. Freyt wanted to know.
Tiff tried to retain his calm as he hypered back: "Immediate help requested. Total crew dying on board. Lt. Pucky and four of us under fleet-size attacks, cylindrical spacers. All physicians on standby. Access Titan spacesuits only—contamination. This is May Day! SOS! Tifflor."
• • •
Emergency alarms sounded through the Ganymede. Col. Freyt announced the reason for it over the PA system, then replayed a taped voice conversation of Tiff's hypergram for staff technical analysis. The Ganymede reached Star Cluster M-13 in three transitions. Another jump transported it into the Thatrel System. All gun turrets of the ship were in ready position. All covers were removed from the firing positions and determined gunners swung in their trigger cradles. Perry Rhodan had sent an SOS! No one could imagine what situation had forced the Chief to such an action.
"I'll lay you odds," said the gunner at beam-station 25 to his mate, who handled the sighting gyros, "it sure must be some special kind of hell!"
At the same moment, Col. Freyt's chief tracking-officer picked up an unbelievably large number of spacers ahead. And
with the flak of bogey blips came the co-ordinates.
"Thank God—finally!" exclaimed Freyt.
The gigantic Ganymede raced into the thick of the space battle. There was obviously no reaction on the part of any of the cylindrical spacers to the emergence of the superior-class battleship.
"Robot ships!" Freyt concluded. His square features hardened. He issued permission to open full fire with all weapons.
"There's the Titan!" came a general cry from gunner crews and screen operators.
At that moment the Titan was engulfed in a holocaust. A blinding coruscation of pyrotechnics traced deadly fingers of ravening energy over the defense screens of the magnificent Arkonide colossus. It looked like a miniature nova. The Ganymede's crew breathed sighs of relief, then cheered as the Titan's spherical bulk reappeared from the bath of flames, unscathed but dark as an eclipsing moon against the battle-streaked battleground of space.
The power reactors of the Ganymede howled. The funnel-shaped ends of the cannon barrels spit death into the cylinder ships. The disintegrating spacers dotted the void with gas clouds. Freyt hit them pitilessly with all his concentrated power. It was a mystery to everyone why the magnificent Titan persisted in mere evasive manoeuvres under incessant fire, without once opening up with its giant guns.
The battle of the Ganymede against the robot spacers lasted eight hours. Its 2500-foot hull made it a giant among the others, none of which was longer than 600 feet.
"Good Lord!" Freyt fumed at the videoscreens in his command center. "Do we have to convert every last one of them into a ruptured sun ball before they quit!?"
He saw three more cylindrical ships peel away out of sector Green-28, coming at him in a direct line of attack. Then suddenly they changed their course and turned away. Half an hour later the space around the Titan and the Ganymede was empty. The last robot ship, its stern damaged, lumbered with one-tenth the speed of light into deep space. A certain radio impulse must have directed the rest of the robot fleet to return. The battle was finished but now a different battle started.
