‘Peripheral, but closing,’ Sandra told him, referring to her instruments.
‘Sensor reading?’
Maya efficiently punched some buttons on her console. ‘Fifty-three UFOs; dense; metallic; approximate length ten feet; insufficient data to compute intention...’
‘Course?’ he grunted at Sandra.
‘Bearing past the Moon.’
‘Let’s hope they keep that course,’ Koenig muttered.
The slim deadly-looking missiles with grey, corrugated sides and blunt noses tallied with every specification that had just been announced. They floated malignly in space on the screen, so vivid and sharp that they almost seemed to be right there in the Centre. They seemed to stand only for trouble.
A green light flashed on Hayes’ console. He hit a button ‘We have magnification,’ he informed.
The trail of bright objects dissolved into an even larger, more clearly defined image; moving from left to right against the background of stars.
‘They must be missiles!’ Hayes declared. He reached for the Red Alert button, but Koenig stopped him.
‘Hold it. If they’re passing – let them go.’
Tensely, they watched the flute-shaped objects flying away from them. Koenig waitied patiently for them to pass so that he could declare the occurrence closed and allow his immense relief to surface.
‘John! They’re turning!’ Sandra Benes reported anxiously.
He snapped his eyes back to the screen in alarm. The missiles were slowly turning their snub noses towards the cameras. Now there was no escaping action. ‘Red Alert!’ he commanded, sitting forward in his seat.
The whooping note of the emergency klaxon sounded in all Centres and Sections on all levels.
‘Launch Eagle flights One and Two,’ Hayes’ urgent voice followed the instilled procedure.
Koenig stabbed at a button and the image on the Big Screen divided down the middle, showing first one and then the other Eagle taking off in a streak of orange flame.
Helena’s voice came through from the Medical Section as she responded to the emergency. ‘Medical Section. Ready Casualty Reception Units. Heavy Rescue Units stand by.’
The whooping klaxon continued and on the console monitors appeared images of the doctors, nurses and rescue men in white asbestos suits running along the corridors to their posts.
‘Range closing – one eight zero... one six zero...’ Sandra began the count down, keeping a careful check on the approaching enemy.
‘Raise blast shields...’ Hayes spoke out instructions.
‘One three zero... one one zero...’ Her voice was faster now, and drier. Her heart beat wildly inside her, but years of training kept her at her post.
‘Arm main lasers,’ Koenig ordered, grimly. ‘Prepare to fire.’
Simon Hayes was the first to crack. ‘At this closing speed we’ll never get them all!’ he shouted above the noise of the klaxon.
The deadly snub noses of the missiles sped onward towards the Moon, blotting out the screen with their dark bodies. The massive zoom lenses on the cameras reduced down, but they were unable to keep up with the rapid approach of the UFOs, and the image on the screen was soon replaced with only the background of stars.
CHAPTER TWELVE
This time they had really been caught on the hop, Koenig told himself in resignation, but it was scarcely their fault. If he had been able to make contact with the Moon Base from Sunim, the attack could have been averted – simply by ordering a reconaissance party to investigate the missiles before they had a chance to enter the Moon’s area of space. The missiles could have been harmlessly destroyed. At any rate, the Moon Base would have had more warning to prepare itself. With all their key personnel on Sunim, apart from Helena, who had been overworked attending to the sick guard and a spate of other connected plant infections that had followed, there had been no-one of any real authority on the Base to make such a serious decision.
The cameras had located the missiles again, now dangerously close to the large lump of rock the Alphans called their home. They had penetrated the defences of the Moon Base and now nothing could stop them. There was nothing they could do but sit and wait for the warheads to hit them – and explode the Moon and all aboard her into a million spinning pieces. They had travelled from one doomed planet to another, Koenig thought ironically.
‘Eagles climbing to intercept!’ Sandra’s voice called out through his despondency. The Eagles could do no real good now. The missiles were too fast. They were too close to the lunar surface and if fired upon they would destroy the Moon as incontravertibly as if they had been allowed to collide with it.
But even that way out was preferable, for at least the Eagle Pilots would get a few days longer to add to their life calender. He spoke savagely into his communicator. ‘Target!’
Sandra Benes stabbed at a button on her console. She looked worried; but she did not look scared out of her wits. She would do if she knew the truth, Koenig thought to himself.
Even Hayes didn’t have a clear idea. ‘There are too many of them – some are bound to get through!’ he cried, repeating his theme of earlier.
‘Range critical,’ Sandra reported.
‘Prepare to fire,’ Koenig intoned strongly – proud of his staff, and fighting back tears of remorse that threatened to overwhelm him. Only a miracle would save them now.
‘John!’ Sandra exclaimed with sudden excitement and relief. ‘They’re changing course!’
‘What?’ Koenig was all action again. ‘Hold fire...’ He stared disbelievingly at the screen. True enough the missiles had slowed down, and they were beginning to turn their sniffing noses away.
‘They’re pulling away...’ Hayes reported, staggered.
‘Negative,’ Maya called from her console, cool as ever. She was reading from her computer. ‘They’re locking into orbit round the Moon.’
‘Anything on armament?’ Hayes asked her.
Koenig shook his head in utter incredulity at the conversation that was now taking place. They were behaving and talking with almost a complete lack of knowledge of how close to death they had been. A feeling of intense pleasure for the military training which had enabled them all to survive such a situation rose inside him. He joined in. ‘Detonation possibilities?’ he asked, without showing a trace of his emotions.
‘Wait a minute!’ Maya exclaimed. ‘I haven’t worked out Simon’s request yet...’ She buried her head back in her printouts. ‘Still insufficient data. Sensors are unable to probe the shell. As regards your question, John... the possibilities are three. Pressure, time-fused or remote control.’
Koenig nodded intently. ‘Then prepare a transporter Eagle for take-off!’
Hayes looked up sharply at him. Koenig explained. ‘We’ve got to check them out. We can’t leave fifty missiles hanging over our heads forever!’
Still recovering from the cluster of rapid events that had put his leadership to the test, and still feeling slightly uncomfortable about the way the events might have turned out, Koenig stepped out of the travel tube and into the Eagle’s airlock. Maya stepped inside with him.
The hatchway closed behind them and Koenig reached the communicator on the wall. He switched it on and spoke to the pilot. ‘Get ready to take us off.’ He and Maya turned to the equipment lockers that lined the wall and began pulling out their spacesuits. Soon, they had the bottom parts of them on and they walked bulkily through into the Pilot Section, clutching their helmets.
‘OK, take her up,’ Koenig told the pilot as he and Maya seated themselves and strapped in.
The engines thundered to life against the small gravitational pull of the Moon and they rose from the launch pad without much strain. Soon, the skilled pilot had manoeuvred the craft alongside the fleet of small missiles – each no more than the length of an average human body.
Koenig looked decisively at them on the monitor in front of him. Beyond them, further out in space, the two Eagle War Ships could be seen. Koenig b
rought the pilot’s attention to a pair of the missiles which were adrift on their own, slightly away from the larger mass. ‘Bring us in close to those,’ he said. Then he turned and gestured to Maya. They rose from their seats and returned to the Passenger Section, attaching their helmets. While Maya erected a tripod-shaped sensor with a readout facility, he waited at the hatchway for the pilot to complete his manoeuvre.
‘Go ahead, Commander,’ the Pilot’s voice came at length, crackling over his head-piece. He reached out a suited, gloved arm and activated the airlock mechanism. The environmental indicator flashed, telling him that the conditions outside could not be lived in without LSS. Slowly, the inner doors opened and he stepped inside. He waited for Maya to drag the weightless sensor through and join him. Automatically, the inner doors closed. After a moment’s pause, the outer ones opened –on the edge of endless space.
Below them, in the silent, vast gulf that yawned forever all around their tiny selves and their equally tiny ship, the two UFOs hung. What seemed like only a short step below them, the deformed, grey orb of the Moon lay, mostly obscured by more of the grey swarm of intruders. Apart from the sluggish rotation of the lunar world, there appeared to be no movement. The various objects and their complex relationships seemed frozen forever.
Koenig clipped himself to one of the umbilical life-lines that trailed from large reels affixed to the airlock walls. Then, with practiced hands he operated the propulsion pack on his back and launched himself off the lip of the airlock steps.
He jetted toward the nearest of the two missiles and attached himself to it with suction pads. He examined its surface intently. It was made of some kind of metal, deeply grooved. Releasing his pads, he moved round the mysterious craft – like some kind of inquisitive insect around a huge geometrical dropping. Almost certainly, the craft was unmanned. Unless its occupants were midgets, he thought to himself. It tapered back to a hollow point, looking for all the universe like a finless, guided missile. But then, if that were the case, why hadn’t they done their dirty work and got it over with? Why had they pulled away at the last moment? Maybe, the thought crossed his mind, whoever or whatever was controlling them wanted to have them investigated – just such an investigation as he was now supplying. He pulled away, and turned his body slowly around in the directionless, weightless void. The feelings of vertigo and panic that a distant part of him felt as the stars and the other heavenly objects cartwheeled around him, stayed where they had been forced to stay ever since his early training days – deep and distant. He re-orientated, and glanced at the second missile. In every way, it was identical with the first. The other fifty-one UFOs beyond them seemed to be arranged in no apparent order.
‘They’re in no uniform formation,’ he reported over his helmet radio to Maya, who was waiting with her sensor in the airlock. ‘They’re in clusters. Two, three and four...’
‘No evidence of electrical activity according to the sensor... no heat emission...’
‘Come on over then,’ Koenig invited her, watching as her small body launched itself off the steps and jetted over to him. In space, there was no optical appreciation of three dimensions – only two; which meant that distances could not be guessed at unless one first had a firm idea of the relative sizes of the objects one was comparing. What looked like an inch could, in effect, and in an extreme example, turn out to be a million light years! That was just another reason why space was no home for humans. Without the crutch of their instrumentation to guide them, they would live no longer than the time it takes to die when air or heat is cut off.
Maya held a small hand sensor and she jetted round to the tail of the craft, followed by Koenig. They looked in at the crude exhaust systems. ‘Rocket motor propulsion,’ Koenig stated. ‘Gas ports... that means a guidance capacity.’
Maya checked the gas ports and their fan of burnt, discoloured metal. She read off her sensor meter. ‘No... longer... function.’
Simon Hayes’ voice crackled over the intercommunication system. ‘Anything John?’
‘Not enough to make an assessment...’ Koenig replied. ‘To do that we’re going to have to take a look inside. We’re bringing one down.’
There was a surprised pause. ‘Bringing one down?’
‘You heard,’ Koenig told him, operating his jet pack and easing the missile forward. ‘Prepare one of the outbuildings. I want to be as far as possible from Command Centre when we open this thing up.’
Effortlessly, he and Maya began to float it through space towards the huge grabs of the motionless Eagle.
The Research Unit was situated on the furthermost arm of the Moon Base – for obvious reasons. If anything went wrong inside, the rest of the Base would hopefully not suffer. It was not even connected to Alpha by corridors, but by travel tube.
It took Helena fifteen minutes to get to it from the Command Centre. Her presence would be needed in case of accidents when the missile was opened up. The travel tube door in front of her opened and she stepped out. Ahead of her was a short corridor; at the end, the workshop laboratory where they had taken their puzzling find. She walked through.
The laboratory, like all the others, was divided into two parts – an operations area and an observation area. The two areas were separated by a thick, protective see-through partition in which was set a door.
‘Medical and Rescue Units standing by,’ she announced as she entered the observation part. Koenig and Maya had rushed in and were still taking off their space suits. Koenig nodded, and slipped quickly into a swivel seat in front of the operating console. Maya took the seat beside him and started to work the controls.
Helena stood behind pensively, watching their procedure. Through the glass she could see the missile being wheeled in through a separate entrance on a trolley by crew members. The men wore protective clothing and pushed it towards an operating plinth with a revolving base, then loaded it on.
‘We can safeguard against the obvious dangers – bacteria, toxic chemicals – but anything else has to be guesswork,’ Helena informed them.
Koenig nodded again. He spoke into his monitor. ‘Simon –hook us up to the main computer. We’re going to have to run every possible test before we pierce that casing.’
‘Computer link ready in Main Mission,’ Hayes replied almost instantaneously.
‘Let’s start then,’ Koenig announced tensely. The men who had wheeled the missile in had now departed, and the ominous-looking craft was left on its own under the powerful operating lights. At Maya’s touch, a remote control, mobile, multi-purpose scanner moved forward into position inside the operating room. Obligingly, the cylinder under inspection revolved slowly on its stand.
‘Immediate relay,’ Hayes notified Koenig of a computer reading. As he spoke, the print-outs chattered out of the console in front of Maya and Helena.
‘What have you got?’ Koenig asked them.
Maya studied one of the sheets. ‘Theoretical possibilities about the construction technique – but nothing of any practical value in terms of piercing it.’ She sounded disappointed.
Helena was equally unexcited by her sheet. ‘No data to assess chemical or bacteriological dangers until the shell’s pierced.’
‘Vicious circle,’ Koenig stated flatly. ‘All right then. We’re going to have to go in blindfold.’ He nodded to Maya.
Inside the operating area, the scanner arm emitted a beam of pure white light. The light hit the body of the cylinder and resolved itself down to a bright, burning spot. It changed down even further into a needle-thin laser beam. The see-through dividing wall darkened to protect them from the glare. Where the laser struck the metal body, a bright burst of light exploded. It died away, leaving a rough-edged hole.
An apprehensive silence fell in the observation area. The hole gaped obscenely at them, and they shuffled uneasily, waiting for something to happen. The faint sound of a regular ticking and purring came over the loudspeakers.
‘Moving parts!’ Koenig himself exploded into li
ght. ‘There’s a working mechanism inside it!’
‘Perhaps a detonation device,’ Maya cautioned in alarm.
‘Computer reaction?’ Koenig demanded.
Lights flashed on the console as the computer went into a flatspin, followed by more loud chattering as the print-out came. As fast as they came off, Helena read them out. ‘No radiation increase... no bacteriological change... no pressure variation... no toxic chemical presence...’
‘Flush the inside with nitrogen,’ Koenig ordered, quickly deciding what to do.
Maya punched and turned more controls and a nozzle from the scanner arm lowered itself into the hole in the missile casing. A geyser of white nitrogen vapour erupted into the air as the freezing liquid nitrogen was flushed inside – and immediately boiled as it was exposed to room temperature. It bubbled and splashed over the rim of the hole.
An intense hissing sound came over the loudspeakers as it steamed, overriding the sound of the whirring, clicking mechanism. Jaws set in a tight grimace, Koenig watched as more and more of the liquid gas was pumped in. Eventually, the mechanical sounds stopped, their workings frozen solid. He raised his hand and and Maya stopped the input of nitrogen. The hissing died away and once again there was total silence.
They glanced at one another nervously.
Koenig was about to rise and investigate, when a sudden massive explosion occurred inside the operating room, shattering the partition and hurling them all off their feet. Metal chunks flew across the room and embedded themselves in the walls. More excess nitrogen boiled away, and again there was silence.
They picked themselves up, unharmed bar minor cuts and bruises. Helena gathered her numbed wits about her and hit the alarm button.
The Decontamination Unit ran forward into the area from the corridor, and aimed the nozzles from their canisters at the missiles. They were followed by the Medical Unit who raced in with stretchers and first-aid equipment, headed by Ben Vincent. They helped Maya to her seat, and attended to a bad gash on Koenig’s head.
Space 1999 - The Space-Jackers Page 11
