by Perry Rhodan
"The Rigel," Judson groaned. "The damper broke down—it was detected immediately."
Perry Rhodan needed only a second to think through all the possibilities remaining to him. There were not many. "Attempt to repulse the Arkonides!" he ordered. "Have all the defense posts occupied. And keep the ships where they are! Effective immediately, no ships are to take off. We still have a slight chance that the Arkonides will fly past Grautier and go on to Peep. How much time do we still have?"
"Ten minutes, sir," Judson answered quickly. "If they haven't changed their course by then, they'll be able to make out the base with their naked eyes."
"What did the Rigel do?" Rhodan asked.
"It went into transition again, following my orders, sir. I thought it best that the ship leave the system as quickly as possible."
Perry Rhodan remembered swiftly: the Rigel was under the command of Maj. Brackett. Brackett was not someone who would fly with a disabled damper to Earth or anyplace else where there were important secrets. There was no need to be concerned on Brackett's account.
"Very well," said Rhodan, ending the conversation. "Keep us informed as things develop." He turned around even before Judson had switched off. Atlan, Bell and the mutant Fellmer Lloyd were looking at him.
"It looks bad," said Rhodan quietly.
The Arkonide moaned. "I knew there was something wrong in this!"
Perry Rhodan smiled bitterly. "Nothing that could have been reasonably foreseen," he replied. "But you're right of course: that doesn't change anything now."
They were quiet for a few moments. Then Rhodan stood up and went to one of the doors leading to the hallways that connected the large computer room with the other rooms in the bunker complex. At the door, he turned and looked at the others. No excitement was evident in his voice as he spoke.
"It just occurred to me that given the right circumstances the Arkonides might assume Grautier is the Earth. Not if they look very closely, of course, but they may be too nervous to do that. So the possibility is rather large that they'll drop a whole series of unpleasant bombs on us. Arkon Bombs, for example, which ignite unextinguishable atomic fires. I'd advise you to put on spacesuits."
He went out. They heard his hard steps on the corridor floor grow fainter.
During the exchange with Judson, he had correctly judged the situation. He could now completely concentrate his attention on what lay before him. Of course the Arkonides would find Grautier. There was no use in calling for Deringhouse and the entire fleet. They would be able to repulse the Arkonide attackers but would suffer losses thereby. The Earth could not afford to lose a single ship. And above all, there was one thing Deringhouse and his fleet could not do: prevent the Arkonides from dropping their bombs if they had such a course of action in mind. He would come too late. So it was better that he remained where he was.
After all, only a single base was at stake. And it wasn't even an important one. There was nothing to lose on Grautier except 23 ships, which were small and meant only for transport purposes. The major part of the fleet stood 500 light-years away, unnoticed by the Arkonides. No, Earth and mankind were not in danger.
However, there was the danger to mankind that Perry Rhodan in all probability would not survive the next five hours.
• • •
Perry Rhodan's unshakable calm had rubbed off on Lt.-Col. Judson. With skilled movements of his hand, he set the Allround intercom in operation so that all men, even those off in closed rooms somewhere, could see and hear him, and he gave his instructions.
The orders were terse, and precise. "Everyone is to stand by at his post. There will be no leaving this planet unless you are ordered otherwise." Judson then wound up his communication. "We have some difficult hours ahead, men," he said, "but we'll live through them."
When he said that, it was 1151 hours. At 1153 hours, Judson and the radar station were both convinced that the Arkonides were heading straight for Grautier. The planet was directly in their path and they were braking their ships drastically.
Mike Judson gave the missile stations orders to fire as soon as the Arkonide ships had approached within 2,000 kilometers of Grautier's surface.
The enemy ships crossed the limit at 1158 hours. At exactly 1,200 the first surface to air missiles struck their targets. Above Grautier 10 brightly shining fireballs appeared, bathing the landscape in harsh light and then dying out. Mike Judson picked up the intercom mike, pressed a series of buttons and waited until Reginald Bell's face appeared on the vidscreen.
"The attack has begun, sir," he reported. "We shot down 10 Arkonide ships on their first flyover."
A smile flew across Reginald Bell's face. "My the Lord have mercy on your optimism—the way I hear it, there are 1000 ships in all."
That Judson could not deny. The radar had supplied the exact number in the meantime: the attackers' fleet consisted of 1,200 of Arkon's largest spaceships.
"We're doing our best, sir," Judson assured him.
"I don't doubt that," Bell replied. "We're on our way up to help you."
Judson's eyes went wide in astonishment. He wanted to say something in answer but at that moment a flash of unbearable brightness blinded him. He saw Reginald Bell's face disappear in a chaos of iridescent, glowing rings. Then the broad glassite window, through which Judson had been able to see the broad landing surface of the spaceport from his control board, shattered in a reverberating crash. It seemed to him that a giant's hand raised him out of his chair and slammed him against the rear wall. He screamed in pain. He lay for a few seconds half unconscious on the floor. Then, to his surprise, he was able to stand up without any difficulty.
The room in which he had been sitting earlier was no longer in existence. Next to him lay a broken chair. Walls and ceilings had been blown hundreds of meters away by the force of the explosion, piled up with other rubble into heaps of debris.
From the middle of the landing field rose the incandescent flame of a nuclear bomb. Judson felt the heat radiating from it. He was glad that at the critical moment he'd had the glassite window in front of him. Without the window he would have now been a greyish brown lump of human ashes. Now the window was gone. The next bomb would catch him unprotected in an open area and complete the work of the first. He looked around. The explosion shockwave had spared a number of low, barrack-like structures in the distance. They stood a little tilted now but they seemed otherwise undamaged. He ran towards them. Oddly enough, he felt no fear. All he wanted was an intercom so he could stay in touch with his men.
While he ran, a defense missile took off from the ground in front of him and to the right. It shot almost straight up into the sky, riding on a glowing beam of nuclear particles. Judson stopped to watch it, astonished. He was still staring when high in the sky a brilliant, glaring fireball from an explosion appeared, dazzling him. He had not heard any sounds, neither from the missile's takeoff nor from the roaring of its engines. He raised his right hand and snapped his fingers next to his ear. Nothing. All was silent. He had lost his hearing. Whether it was only temporarily or permanently, he could not determine. In any event, nothing worse could have happened to him at a time of extreme danger when he had to give orders and receive reports. Helpless and uncertain, he started to move again. The nuclear bomb had blasted tons of dust into the air and the spreading dust cloud was now starting to obscure the sky. It was growing dark. Brilliant, blazing missile trails flashed through the twilight like lightning in a colossal thunderstorm. Stumbling, Judson reached the first of the barracks. The front door was jammed but he opened it with a forceful kick, throwing into the blow all his anger over his helplessness.
It was dark inside. The bomb seemed to have knocked out a part of the base's energy supply. Judson felt his way to the intercom and switched it on. The unit was furnished with current from another source. The vidscreen and the instrument lights lit up instantly.
Judson thought over the question of what he should do now. The world around him lay wrapped in an opp
ressive, dangerous stillness. He seemed to be alone on the entire planet. The flashes of missile launchings, the blowing dust, the crouching figures of men running here and there in the gloom—all those were things that were taking place in another universe and had nothing to do, with Mike Judson.
He pulled himself together. He had to do something. Those men out there were waiting for his orders. He tried to estimate how many of the 23 ships which had remained behind were still intact and came out with about 15. The nuclear bomb had torn apart, overturned, flattened or melted the other eight.
Judson called the radar station. The red and sweating face of a man appeared on the vidscreen.
"Listen to me!" Judson exclaimed. "I'm deaf—I can't hear you at all. When you answer my questions, do it with gestures or write on a piece of paper. Is that clear?"
He saw the man nod and say something, though he could not hear it.
"Where is the enemy now?" Judson wanted to know.
The radar officer bent to the side and busied himself for a few seconds at his task. Then he raised a sheet of paper and Judson read in hurried scrawled letters:
"Spread out all over the whole planet. Average altitude 1,500 kilometers."
Too high, then, for the stationary disintegrators, Judson decided, depressed; and above all, the ships were too widely dispersed for a massive bombardment.
"What are our losses?"
Again a short pause. Then a new sheet of paper.
"Eight ships, 84 men wounded or dead. Increasing radioactivity threatens more losses."
The spacesuits, Judson thought in confusion. Why hadn't they put on their spacesuits?
Then it occurred to him that he was not wearing one himself. Too much had happened in a few minutes.
No one had had time to think of anything but his own surprise.
"Take charge of passing on this instruction for me," he ordered the officer. "Spacesuits are to be put on at once! This is more important than anything else. And let me know as soon as some new development takes shape. The Arkonides are laying low at the moment, aren't they?"
The officer nodded and Judson ended the communication.
He knew that they could not hold the base. It was only weakly protected with defense weapons. That was because at the time of its construction no one had expected the Arkonides to be operating in the near future with a gigantic fleet only a few light-years from Grautier. The base's most effective defense was that the Arkonides knew nothing of it. If they had discovered it a few days before, the Terran fleet would have been on hand to repulse any attack. Now there were only a few small unarmed transport ships exposed defenseless to the next attack. There had been 23 in all; eight of them were now ready for the scrap pile.
At the far western edge of the landing field another missile shot into the sky. It was equipped with an internal guidance system. Within a few seconds it would hit its target and make it a radiant cloud of glowing gases. The Arkonides knew that. Why didn't they strike back?
Judson looked out the slanting window into the darkness. What was that strip of yellow light in the northwest? A fire?
Nonsense! How could a chrome-plastic landing field catch fire?
Judson rubbed his eyes. But the yellow strip of light did not vanish. It grew brighter and larger and seemed to be coming closer. Judson called up the radar officer for a second time. Before the vidscreen lit up, he saw out of the corner of his eye how the men in the nearest missile-launching post climbed out and ran across the eastern edge of the field to the storage building in the rear. In a quarter of an hour at most they would all be wearing the ordered spacesuits.
The officer's face was even redder now, due to the excitement, and sweat poured down his cheeks.
"What kind of fire is that in the northwest?" Judson asked.
The officer forgot what Judson had told him about his ears and answered vocally. Judson saw his lips moving and gestured irritably. "Write it down!" he snapped.
Seconds later he read the paper:
"Cause still unknown. Atomic fire caused by Arkon bombs is suspected."
Judson whistled through his teeth. He had his plan ready in a fraction of a second. "Pay attention," he told the officer. "Turn off your radar and don't worry about it anymore. We have more important things to do now. Tell the men that they are to get aboard the remaining ships as quickly as possible and get off Grautier. There's nothing to be gained by staying here. Understood?"
The officer did not nod. He bent to the side and wrote a new message: "Where are the ships to go?"
"Anywhere," Judson replied. "If they can get through the Arkonide net at all, they should go to Peep or any other planet in the system where they can hide out until the Terran Fleet picks them up." When he saw that the officer was hesitating, he added: "Quick, man! Hurry! We don't have a second to lose!"
Nevertheless, the officer wrote a new comment. "What about you?" Judson read.
"Don't worry about me!" he exclaimed to the officer. "I'll get out of this alright. Over and out!"
Still, he was glad that the officer had been concerned about him.
Everything's in order, he told himself. In a few minutes the men would be leaving. Grautier. Now you've got to go get yourself a spacesuit!
He stood up and went out. Outside, a violent storm had developed. The air was hot and sticky; Judson was almost sick to think of how many radioactive dust particles it must contain.
He pulled himself together and ran. Despite the strip of light in the northwest, the darkness was so complete that he feared losing his way to the storehouse. He kept an eye out for other men but either they were running more than 10 meters away from him or had already been supplied with their spacesuits.
Judson now knew why the Arkonides were doing nothing else. They had dropped their Arkon Bombs all over Grautier and were now waiting for the atomic fire to spread. They had nothing further to worry about from the Terran missile defense. One of the bombs had hit in the vicinity of the landing field. It was now only a question of minutes before the fire front overran the missile posts. Besides, they were robot ships. Their instinct of self-preservation was of a purely mechanical nature and subordinated to tactical considerations.
The storm made Judson stagger. As it finally blew him against a hard building-sized obstruction he cursed the pain on his forehead. But he was happy to have reached his destination.
No one was inside any longer. Judson pushed against the inward-swinging door, requiring all his strength to shut it again against the force of the raging storm. Then he leaned against the wall and took time to catch his breath.
The darkness did not bother him. He knew his way around the storage building. In less than a minute he found the closets in which the spacesuits were hung on racks. He took one down and opened the closures.
It cost him two minutes to put on the heavy suit and properly seal it. During these two minutes he saw through the broad windows five points of light rise over the yellow wall of fire and disappear in the sky above. Five ships had taken off, bringing the men to safety away from the atom hell of Grautier.
On his way back to the door, Judson ran into the small table on which the intercom stood. It suddenly occurred to him Reginald Bell had said 15 minutes before—or had it been two hours?—that he, Rhodan, and the Arkonide would come up to help him. Good heavens! They had no chance of finding him, let alone helping him.
With his stiff, clumsy glove he picked up the microphone. He pressed the wrong buttons three times in a row but finally punched the deep bunker's number correctly. The vidscreen lit up but showed Judson nothing but the red waiting symbol. The connection was open but no one answered the call on the other side.
Judson was filled with frantic terror. They were on their way up! Rhodan, Bell, the Arkonide and the mutant. If they chose the wrong exit, they would come out right in the middle of the fire!
That must not happen!
Mike Judson made his way back. Step by step, he retraced the path which he had come. N
ow that he wore the heavy spacesuit and helmet, he felt nothing more of the heat the storm carried with it. But the wind was strong and he had to bend forward in order to make any progress.
The yellow wall of light had grown, spreading subdued brightness through the dust. Judson kept to the right, to the north actually, so that he could reach the bunker exit that lay in the vicinity of his former command post. He did not know exactly what he should do to warn Perry Rhodan and his men of the chaos on the planet's surface but it seemed to him a good idea to go down into the bunker and make the rounds of the circular corridor on the uppermost level which connected all 15 exits.
From time to time he saw pale balls of light climb into the air to the left and in the west: the engine exhausts of ships taking off, distorted grotesquely by the heat and the storm. He was filled with a grim joy over the successful escapes of his men. He hoped fervently that none of them would be so stupid as wait with the last ship until he, Mike Judson, was on board. Moreover, he hoped that the vessels would succeed in passing unnoticed through the Arkonide net.
Debris appeared in front of him: the remains of the building that had stood near the command post. He recognized the oval foundations of what had been a watertank. The tank itself had been ripped away by the shockwave but its anchoring had stayed behind.
Judson stumbled. The storm threw him to the ground and rolled him a few meters farther on. He painfully struck something hard and pointed. As he stood up again, his chest hurt as though he had broken a rib.
Not that! he thought, horrified. The bunker entrance is still 200 meters away at least! I’ve got to reach it!
He saw that the yellow wall of fire had grown to the height of a good-sized house. It stretched without end from north to south. It must have long since reached the middle of the landing field. But it did not grow any higher into the air. Judson saw that its luminosity was much less at its upper edge than at the bottom. Without really wanting to, he remembered what he had learned about Arkon bombs: set to the electron number of one or more elements, they brought the atoms of those elements into the nuclear reaction and detonation, igniting an atom fire of sorts which could be extinguished only when the 'fuel' had been exhausted.
