Space 1999 - The Time Fighters

by Michael Butterworth

  ‘So everybody is dead on Home Planet – and poor old Strat Distil died the minute he stepped out of the Transbeamer...’ the Man With The Gaps growled sarcastically. As he spoke he ripped one of the covers off Koenig’s bed. He tore a wide strip of material off it.

  ‘Home Planet Security Head Inver reports another drop in resistance and disagreement with the Government by opposition...’ the news announcement continued, unheeded.

  The three figures advanced towards him again and he backed against the wall, feeling for a way of escape.

  ‘But only you’ve immunity, spy... Alien...?’ the Man With The Gaps continued mercilessly.

  ‘Home Planet Security Head Inver predicts that at this rate, all Opposition will soon die out completely...’

  ‘Let’s see how immune you are to a noose around your neck!’ The Man With The Gaps suddenly raised the cloth strip he was carrying and pulled it tautly.

  Koenig felt a sudden, blind terror grip him and he stared desperately at the three killers. ‘The Moon Base... my home planet’s colliding with a planet in your star system... You must let me get back!’ he told them numbly. ‘If I don’t, hundreds of my people will die...’

  But they weren’t listening.

  Recklessly, he launched himself at them, trying to break through them. But they grabbed hold of him firmly and the Man With The Gaps began making the cloth into a noose.

  ‘We’re approaching the quadrants of the Commander’s last message,’ Sahn reported calmly from her console in the cabin of Eagle Seven.

  Instrumentation hummed and clicked. Lights flashed and burned reassuringly inside the great ship as it nosed its way across the interstellar wastes.

  On the screen next to her was a picture of the large burning star that their home was crashing into, threatening to consume them forever. In the bottom corner was the round curve of the Devil Moon, Entra, and hanging above it, much further away, was the globe of Ellna.

  ‘Try to pick up Eagle One on your sensor,’ Fraser told Sahn from the flight panel where he was seated. He was trying with no success at all to pick up Moon Base Alpha. Since they had blasted off, moments before Sandor and his mad mob had taken over control, they had lost contact, and were wondering now whether this was not the end for them all. They seemed in an impossible situation. Too many events were happening at once and they were unable to adequately control them.

  Sooner or later it had been expected that the end would come, that the Moon Base would enter into such a situation. It had seemed an inevitability. But they had never known when.

  In the last few moments the ship’s on-board computer had delivered the result of the calculations concerning the theoretical moment of impact of the Moon Base with the alien planet. It had confirmed that the impact would in fact take place and it told them that there were less than two Earth days to go. Already the Moon and her population of Alphans, if they were still alive, were well inside the star’s planetary system, hurtling towards impact. They were, ironically, so far distant from the alien sun, that had the small planet they were colliding with not been where it was, arcing around on its remote orbit, they would have safely passed its collossal gravitational pull and journeyed uneventfully on their way into Space.

  That was not to be.

  Fraser stared bitterly at the blank screen and the torn sheet of computer print-out lying on the controls in front of him. It would take them several more hours to land on the alien moon below them and to find their bearing... and how many more to find out if Koenig and Maine were still alive? And if they were alive, how many more hours would it take to lift them off the planet? The return journey to Alpha, now much closer to them, he estimated would take five hours. That left them with precisely thirty hours to play with – plus a couple of hours to evacuate the Moon and then watch it being blown to bits.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Verdeschi gazed in abject despair at the large image of impending doom on the Big Screen.

  Their oversized planetary death mate was a freezing-cold, rust-coloured globe of primal gasses and liquids. In effect it was more of a sea or a swamp than a planet, and when they struck it they would sink into it like a stone into mire.

  It blazed evilly on the screen, its smooth surface of atmospheric gasses as yet unruffled. But soon it would become a hell planet.

  He stared at it in exasperation.

  ‘Yasko,’ he demanded of the smiling oriental computer operator who sat at her console across the room. ‘Give me Travel Tube Four, Level D.’

  The operator played her hands briefly across her controls and the image of the planet abruptly vanished. It was replaced a moment later with the ugly combined mug shot of Sandor and his three cronies. When Verdeschi saw them his first reaction was one of utter loathing, remembering how the red-haired giant had used him as a hostage, first to free his friends from the Medical Centre, then to sabotage the Life Support Centre and finally to jam themselves inside the Travel Tube half-way on a course beneath the lunar surface.

  The psychotic, muddle-headed madman was holding up to ransom the vital Life Support parts he had stolen – in return for the Leadership.

  ‘Sandor!’ he yelled. ‘Listen to me. If you can hear me, tell me. I’m in no mood for you and we have no time to lose. We are on a collision course. That’s no trick. You better believe that and if you’ve a scrap of conscience for the rest of us out here as you claim, you’ll come out now and hand over those parts. Without them our air will poison...’

  Sandor’s ruddy face wore the fixed expression of a man who had decided that no-one other than himself from now on could be trusted. His jeering, sarcastic smile was gone and he cut Verdeschi off with a harsh, accusing tone of voice.

  ‘You admit there is a planet,’ he stated.

  Verdeschi’s brow furrowed in fury. ‘Yes – but a planet in the earliest stages of formation. No green grqss, no trees, no rivers... we arrived fifty million years too early for all that.’

  ‘No!’ Sandor cried. ‘You’re lying, Verdeschi!’

  ‘It’s just a bloody weather belt!’ the Security Chief shouted out, almost beside himself. ‘A mantle of dust and unbreathable gas, a sea of ammonia and a thick, frozen core.’

  Sandor’s paranoid eyes stared out at them, refusing to believe. But Verdeschi’s words of conviction were being felt by his three hangers-on. They looked shocked and close to breaking point.

  ‘He could be telling the truth, Sandor.’ Cernik leant forward, trembling and shaking.

  The self-styled messiah scarcely heard him. He still gazed stonily out of the screen at Verdeschi. ‘He’s lying. He’s trying to put the pressure on to force us to give up. On our present course we’ll be drawn into orbit around the new planet. Our predictions told us. We aren’t wrong. We’re still waiting, Verdeschi.’

  He spat out the last words vehemently and the heated Italian waved in rage to Yasko to break the connection. He began pacing up and down the Command Centre.

  ‘We’ve got to get through to him in time...’ He turned to Maya. ‘How long have we got?’

  The Psychon glanced down at her console. ‘On our present course we collide with the planet in twenty-four hours. We start evacuation in fifteen.’

  ‘Can’t we alter the planet’s trajectory?’ Yasko asked.

  Verdeschi shook his head. ‘No, we just don’t have the megatons...’ He paused thoughtfully. They waited intently for him to continue. ‘But we do have the power to steer Alpha clear.’ His eyes lit up in revelation.

  ‘You mean alter the Moon’s course?’ Maya frowned. ‘Surely we don’t have the megatons to do even that.’

  ‘1999, the way this whole Moon trip started. When the nuclear waste dumps blew up.’ Verdeschi threw his thoughts at them, still working them out in his head.

  They stared incredulously.

  ‘You mean you would deliberately trigger the rest of the atomic waste?’ Yasko asked.

  ‘Some of it,’ he replied. ‘How else do we get an explosion big enou
gh to shift the Moon a degree or two off course?’

  Maya started forward enthusiastically. ‘It could work – we’d need an atomic trigger. And a whole lot of luck.’ She ran to her console. ‘I’ll get a damage forecast on a sudden two degree shift.’

  ‘Well?’ Verdeschi asked her after a few minutes tense wait.

  She read aloud, translating the figures into worlds. ‘Anticipate major damage in all sections. High fire risk...’ She looked up. ‘That’s not too bad. My own calculations were that the entire Base would disintegrate.’

  Verdeschi nodded grimly. ‘This time we’ll trust the computer. Not that your personal forecast will be wrong, but it’s our only ray of hope. What about people?’

  ‘A zero survival rate.’

  He clenched his jaw muscles. ‘Then we’ll have to advance the evacuation plans.’ He stepped quickly back to his console and stabbed at a button. ‘Attention all Moon Base personnel,’ he announced gravely. ‘We are faced with the enormous risk of blasting the Moon out of its present collision course. To minimize the risk I am ordering immediate and total evacuation. Please proceed immediately to your evacuation points bringing your allotted specification of baggage. All non-essential systems to be shut down and Sections and rooms sealed off...’

  He broke the link and turned to face Maya. ‘If Sandor won’t move from the Travel Tube then he can go and rot in hell – this Hell, because Hell is what Alpha’s going to become in a few hours from now.’

  One hour later Helena reported to him.

  ‘The Medical Centre’s clear, Tony.’ She rushed breathlessly in, stopping in alarm when she saw the pile of equipment and apparatus that Command Centre had produced. It seemed as though they had packed away the entire room in several tall stacks of containers, and she said as much.

  Verdeschi shrugged. ‘If we fail to shift the Moon off course those Eagles will become our only home.’

  ‘And how long can we live in a fleet of space transporters without cutting each other’s throats?’

  ‘A lot of Alphans asked that question when we split away from Earth,’ he replied wryly.

  She smiled wanly. ‘The Tony Verdeschi/John Koenig philosophy – if we’ve still got chips on the table, we’re still in the game.’

  ‘Something like that,’ he said.

  An hour later Moon Base Alpha was deserted, save for Verdeschi, Maya and Sandor.

  The nurses, the doctors, the security guards, the operatives and a hundred and one other personnel were waiting silently in the repaired Eagle Fleet to leave their precarious home.

  They had all the equipment they were likely to need for the next few months; if, after this time they were still forced to stay in Space, then they would have to commence building a new home – linking together their ships to make a space station; pirating a livelihood from passing planets and asteroids until they had found a new world on which to put down roots.

  Verdeschi waited for Sandor to make up his mind. The doomed messiah and his apostles of madness had been given precisely ten minutes to decide whether to leave with the others, or risk killing themselves.

  ‘He’ll never do it!’ Sandor’s eyes blazed around him like a rat’s in the confined quarters of the Travel Tube. ‘He’ll never trigger the waste pits while we’re still here.’

  His three nervous listeners sat tensely, tightly together in the waves of pathological energy that were rolling off Sandor.

  Except for Eva, they were too frightened to disagree with what he was saying. They had neither the will to fight him, nor the courage to flee from him. But she at least loved him, and placed her trembling, slender hand on his calm, podgy paw and clasped it reassuringly.

  ‘You talk about the new planet, Sandor,’ she said softly, feelingly to him. ‘You talk about freedom from John Koenig’s command... I say let’s start now, the four of us. Let’s vote on what we do.’

  His heavy, suspicious gaze turned on her. It mellowed, its wearer yearning inwardly for her comfort; but suddenly it frowned in puzzlement. ‘Vote?’

  ‘Why not?’ she asked. ‘It’s Koenig who’s the dictator, isn’t it – not you.’

  For a moment he fell silent. He looked downcast. Then, a cunning gleam crept into his eyes as he turned to each of them in turn.

  ‘Cernik? Do we vote?’

  Cernik feigned nonchalance. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Stevens?... Eva?’

  They nodded in agreement.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Those in favour of evacuation.’

  At first there was a general hesitation, then falteringly they raised their arms into the air.

  He nodded, as though all along he had expected such a decision. But he evidently had mixed feelings about them. He snapped on the monitor.

  ‘Verdeschi? We’re coming out.’

  There was a pause, then Verdeschi’s face, weary, distrustful, came on the screen. ‘You’ve got five minutes before the Eagles blast off... and bring the parts that you stole.’

  One by one the massive Eagles lifted off with their priceless cargoes of life and goods. He watched them thunder soundlessly upward from their launch pads into the bleak, starry sky.

  A kind of dim daylight had returned to the Moon, caused by the rays of the distant sun in whose influence they were. At the moment it was daytime and the star hung like a huge jewel on the rocky horizon, its life-giving rays too far off to be of much help to them.

  In the top corner of the screen, several degrees above its great parent, hung the lurid, rust-coloured planet. It was already as big as a golf-ball and growing by the moment. As he stood there and watched it, waiting for the last of the Eagle transporters to lift off, he fancied that he could see its girth gradually swelling, its brightness increasing in intensity.

  ‘Evacuation complete except for Eagle Eleven, Tony,’ Maya informed him from her console. ‘That’s the ship that Sandor’s supposed to be going on. Eighteen hours, twenty-three minutes to collision point.’

  Her voice sounded distant and strange in the deserted Centre.

  He turned. ‘All right – let’s get that atomic trigger in position... We can’t wait any longer for Sandor. Tell that ship to leave.’

  He tensed, glancing nervously around him. He knew Sandor was somewhere near... There were no guards around to help them now.

  They had made their way out of the room. He was reaching for the door controls when the sudden blast from a concealed laser struck him on the shoulder.

  His body flared with light and fire.

  He felt a momentary burst of pain – then nothing as he crumpled obliviously to the floor.

  The chequered, coloured patterns on the walls of the Entran cell began to flash brilliantly, out of sequence, in a confusing, stroboscopic display of lights.

  Koenig raised his hands to his eyes to prevent himself losing his orientation. At the same time he struggled to keep sight of the three figures of the prisoners who were advancing menacingly towards him with the noose. But the lights were having the same effect on them. They were shouting out oaths, staggering about in confusion and pain. He realized gratefully that the lights had probably been turned on for his benefit.

  They dimmed gradually as the door to the cell was flung open and two of the scarlet Huntresses appeared in its frame. Spying him, they strode over. They began prodding him with their whip handles. Watched with hatred by the prisoners, who were now more convinced than ever of his links with the person they called Elizia, he was woman-handled out of the door.

  The guards slammed the door shut behind him.

  ‘Your death would have been such a waste,’ a sensuous, sure voice told him.

  He turned around, startled. Standing in the corridor was a tall, bizzarely-dressed but stunningly attractive woman.

  ‘I agree,’ he smiled, bowing his head slightly in her direction.

  ‘I am Elizia...’ she told him, flattered. ‘Overseer of this penal colony.’

  He recognized the name and gestured to the cell door. ‘
They think you sent me to spy on them.’

  ‘Which proves my contention that prisoners who try to think are dangerous,’ she laughed, flashing thousands of diamonds.

  She led the way down the corridor and they talked as they went. Koenig was confused. ‘I have committed no crime; I came partly in answer to a distress signal... mainly to save my Base from destruction.’ He told her briefly of the colliding planets, expressing his urgent need to leave.

  She nodded. ‘The distress call was a computerized signal activated when disaster struck Ellna. You are the only one who ever responded... As to leaving Entra...’ She sounded suddenly reluctant. ‘I cannot allow Aliens to land here. They cannot pick you up.’

  He looked at her angrily. ‘But we are no threat to you... My name is John Koenig, Commander of the Moon Base...’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ She waved him quiet. ‘We have probed your brain. We know all about you...’

  They had arrived at the Security Ward and she led him inside. He made it clear now that he was present under duress. ‘Then you know that you won’t be able to keep me here.’

  Elizia stopped and smiled thinly at him. ‘You over-estimate yourself.’

  ‘My people know where I am. They’ll come for me.’

  She laughed scornfully. ‘No male has ever wished to rush from my presence. Stay with me and you will experience undreamed of pleasures... until I tire of you.’

  Koenig ignored her. ‘I demand you let me go. You have no right to hold me. My staff will be here looking for me, and...’

  A sudden, fierce buzzing noise cut him off. It was the wall screen. Elizia stepped forward and activated it.

  The head and shoulders of another of the red-garbed women appeared on it. She looked slightly older than the others and more military. Her purple hair was cropped short and she spoke with a deeper, clipped voice. ‘Alien space ship is within our outer quadrant... on a direct course for us.’

  Elizia nodded. ‘Raise barrier shield, Controller.’