by Perry Rhodan
In such operations we did not indulge in very much conversation. My men were too well coordinated with one another to require long-winded explanations.
The Paito disappeared beyond the planet's rim. With the giant flagship we ploughed through a barely noticeable formation of enemy spaceships, followed by a rising howl of violently compressed air masses as we made our entry dive, even though we were keeping to the highest strata of the atmosphere. From the computer room came the announcement that our fairly negligible speed was nevertheless double the theoretical top velocity permissible in this time-plane.
The effects related to this development were momentarily of no concern to me. In spite of the thick ear-protectors I was wearing, my auditory senses were racked with pain. The spherical hull of the Tosoma resounded like a giant bell. Then on top of it the automatic weapons opened their rapid intermittent fire. By comparing our intrinsic velocity with target distances, the master positronic system was able to control the firing intervals so that a swiftly erected learning curve of empirical data resulted in a precise coalescing of range-effective areas, making an even blanket coverage.
We could not observe entirely what was going on down below. We had our hands full trying to hold the ship in its attack orbit because with our engines at full power we were exceeding the free fall limits and the resulting centrifugal force was naturally trying to hurl us on a straight line out into space.
Tarth was shopping for spare energy to throw into the forward collision shielding, even diverting the idle power from the gun turrets that were on the lee side of the firing. Our bow side entry screens were flaming white hot from atmospheric friction in spite of our passage through the thinnest upper strata.
We circled the planet in just 5½ minutes. The course-holding manoeuvres were dangerous. Our overstrained equipment couldn't take the load for very long.
When we reached our starting point after the first orbital run, veering 10° north in the process, I noted on the groundward viewscreens that there was nothing but incandescent land areas and gigantic atomic mushroom clouds to be seen—the latter no doubt having been generated by fissionable or fissionable material. Probably the atomic blasts might even represent explosions of the long, cylindrical enemy ships as they were caught in our fire.
After the second tactical target run, the Tosoma peeled off and away. Maj Eseka had launched a total of 10 Arkon bombs, all of which had struck their designated target areas and ignited.
Finally the terrible thunder of the impulse and disintegrator weapons ceased abruptly. Which only enabled us to distinguish the almost equal raging and roaring of the engines and the power reactors. The battleship's mighty shell still resonated noisily with them. We still could not risk taking off our noise mufflers.
"Where is the Paito?" I shouted excitedly into the head mike of my helmet.
Capt. Masal responded from the tracking center: "Just coming up over the northern pole, Your Eminence. Still maintaining remote fire, accelerating, now using thermocannons vertically on red sector, needlepoint pattern. Apparently no enemy units visible. Now the firing has stopped—only quanta output from propulsion detectable. According to emission readings, no damages apparent. Over and out!"
I breathed a sigh of relief and turned to look at Tarth. My flagship commander smiled back at me. I heard his deep voice in my earphones:
"They won't try stealing off harmless settlers again and they'll lay off shooting up our patrol ships! By Arkon!—who are we dealing with anyway? Are they phantoms, robots or what? How is it they make use of a natural phenomenon for their dirty work? Even if you won't permit it, I'm going to make a forced flight in the Tosoma to Arkon and get hold of an attack fleet. I'll do it one way or another!"
"If it were not for the Methans, yes," I answered wearily, inwardly assailed by self-reproach. Had I proceeded justly? Who were the unknown aliens?
The throat of the outlet funnel loomed before us. We plunged into its depths at light-speed but this time to our great astonishment the previously observed effects did not occur. I was merely expecting that our forward motion would be restricted by invisible forces but this time it seemed that we were pushing through a soft, yielding mass.
The announcement was not long in coming from the power and engine control center. "Speed dropping at 75 mps in spite of full thrust, rate constant. Question: should we inject more nuclear fuel?"
I ordered it immediately, knowing full well the overload I was putting on the equipment. Behind us hurtled the battle cruiser Paito but Inkar had not yet hailed us.
Eternities seemed to pass before we were finally released from the funnel. Just as I was about to turn again to Tarth with a sigh of relief a report arrived from the tracking room:
"Discharge field has disappeared. No further energy variations detectable."
This calmly delivered news made me turn pale. Tarth's eyes were suddenly like saucers. Kosol's face gleamed white from the intercom screen. I saw him look hastily at his watch.
"By our own time frame we were over there just 65 minutes," he said in a troubled tone.
"By our time-frame!" The thought almost exploded in my brain.
How could the field have vanished again? We knew that it would have to have remained stable for at least three hours. Had we experienced one of those feared lapse-rate changes—a reference-oriented time shift? By others' reference points did our 65 minutes equal 65 days, or even as many weeks?
I clambered slowly out of my high-backed chair and lifted the microphone with a trembling hand. "Masal, put in a call to Atlantis, quickly! Call Feltif. I have to know what may have..."
I didn't have to say any more. The emergency call came in under Fleet Format KRA-Q-Z. It was an automatic taped message on open channel and uncoded:
"Capt. Feltif to Squadron Chief. We are lost. Five gun positions have been destroyed and on top of it we're faced with a very heavy overlap front. Half the colonists have been drawn into it. We are retreating with the natives into the forest wilderness and mountains. Approximately 100 enemy ships are maintaining a running attack. The axial stability of the planet is wavering. It appears that the time front has brought strong gravitational fields with it, which are changing the inclination of Larsaf 3's axis to the ecliptic. This is Capt. Feltif. Where are you? I've been calling for nine days. Arkon does not answer. End of message. Will repeat in three minutes, will repeat in three minutes."
Everybody heard the distress call. I stood there as though liquid air had been poured over me. Tarth's face was like a stone statue.
"Attack immediately, come what may," I heard myself saying.
7/ ATLANTIS—DYING
We gambled on a short transition jump but as we emerged out of hyperspace we found ourselves in the center of a mass formation of about 150 heavy-class enemy fighter ships. None of them matched the size of the Tosoma and only two were identified as being capable of facing up to the heavy cruiser Paito. Nevertheless, from the first moment of battle our resistance seemed doomed to failure. We never recovered. After the first penetrating bits the defense screens of the Paito failed. It was structurally characteristic of heavy cruiser types that although they were fast and heavily armed the space demands of equipment installations were satisfied at the cost of defensive screening. The prescribed structural weight, by Arkon standards, could not be exceeded, and if the spherical compartments were stuffed chock-full with every possible type of equipment and machinery there was simply nothing more that would go into the ship.
The proud Paito under Capt. Inkar was caught in a hail of fire from approximately 60 enemy ships and was detonated. The resultant energy release was equivalent to that of a miniature sun. I knew that the engine and reactor cores had gone into a chain reaction. About 50 billion tons of TNT was released, in effect.
The catastrophe occurred close to the lunar orbit. As hot as the sun, the gaseous sphere spread out so quickly that it even grazed the upper air strata of the third planet.
I hovered over the night hemi
sphere of our colonial world. The almost ultra-violet energy ball arched upward in all its splendor and might above the dark planetary horizon and turned the night into glaring day.
Even at our distance our protective screens raged with titanic forces to resist the impact. I was certain that Inkar's fiery demise had taken at least 70 enemy ships to their doom. The aliens were not yet aware of the effects of detonating a large Arkonide fighting ship.
But they learned quickly!
The Tosoma was still lying under a crossfire from about 80 enemy ships but suddenly the fire was lifted. The others had had a bitter lesson. They retreated frantically and did not reopen their effective fire until they were at a distance of almost two million miles.
They had practiced their gunnery well, these mysterious ones from another time plane. My evasive manoeuvres were rash and wild. I had overridden the automatic controls in favor of manual piloting so as to move the heavy ship out of the intercepting energy beams.
It was futile! Only five minutes after our first enemy contact, three thermal shots had broken through our overloaded defense screens. A fire had broken out in power room 4. Six of our available 15 propulsion units went out. From there on the Tosoma's hull plates bore the brunt of everything that was being thrown at us.
Now we were close to the end. Our movements had become sluggish and easier to calculate. We had dropped our excessive speed because even Arkonides cannot shoot perfectly if their ship is traveling near the speed of light.
The enemy had retained their rate of motion. We no longer held any special advantage over them. Per the status report the nuclear hurricane of fire from the Tosoma's gun turrets had annihilated 34 of the alien ships. But there were still enough of them left to polish us off.
By this time the heavily battered Tosoma was ablaze in four major sections and was falling toward the surface of the planet. Just prior to our short transition jump I had issued an order for all hands to exchange their Arkonide combat uniforms for regular spacesuits. With these very excellent apparatuses one was capable of flight and a light repulsion field for defense purposes could also be generated.
The individual protection screens were now urgently needed. The high-pitched hissing sound of the flagship's automatic fire-fighting equipment had already ceased because of breakdown. As a result, the countless safety hatches had long since closed. The individual compartments—and there were hundreds of them—had all been hermetically sealed.
The only method of combating the fire now was to withdraw the synthetic atmosphere from the interior. Without oxygen there could be no process of molecular combustion. I had no sooner gotten such a program underway than the air-pumping system broke down. Of course the positronicon sounded an alarm but that didn't serve much purpose anymore.
The fire continued unabated in the engine and power rooms. If the highly volatile fuel catalyst were to be ignited, the enemy would experience an even greater explosion. For the time being, however, the special tanks held up, since they could withstand temperatures up to 50,000°.
About 60% of the videophone connections were knocked out, as well, so all I had left was the radio intercom system.
As the long, cylindrical ships of the enemy opened their pincers formation in order to get to a safe distance from us, we were temporarily in the lee of their fire. The aliens had stern-mounted propulsion engines whose thrust impulses apparently interfered with the automatic target tracking. At least we suddenly found ourselves free of their fire barrage. I used the opportunity to drop the Tosoma toward the third planet's nearby air envelope. As we made entry, a whistling and howling arose outside. Our usually dependable collision shields had by this time become very weak so that they could hardly ionize the air molecules. And without electrostatic charging, no electromagnetic repulsion could be effected.
Thus it developed that my flagship soon raced through the thin upper strata looking like a red-glowing sunball. In spite of this I maintained a respectable rate of descent. Our Arkonide armor plate hull could withstand 50,000° and the air-conditioning system was still operating.
It was clear to me that we were out of the fighting, without a chance. So I did what any responsible commander-in-chief would have done in such a situation. I was not of the maudlin, romantic school who fancied plunging heroically to a flaming death. What everything depended on now was the possibility of saving the crew survivors so that later we could put in a call for help from the home planet.
"The course is set," announced the First Officer. "Atlantis is ahead in the daylight zone."
I was planning to land the battered Tosoma near Atlopolis and set up a temporary ground defense, to provide fire cover so that the men could escape into the undersea dome.
We were flying at about a 60-mile altitude over the eastern continent which was heavily covered with jungles and populated by extremely primitive dark-skinned savages. Shortly thereafter the broad expanse of the ocean came into view and finally the coastal mountains of Atlantis.
• • •
I heard a muttered curse from Tarth. Above the approaching land rose flaming mushroom clouds. The enemy seemed to have known exactly where the only defense installations were to be found on this world. Moments later we heard from the tracking and detection center. Five spaceships had landed near the coast. Apparently troops were disembarking.
"We aren't picking up any cellular vibrations," announced Capt. Masal from the still-undamaged Com Central. "They are robots."
My orders went out to the weapons officers. The mighty Tosoma prepared to show its claws for the last time.
Tarth spoke with deadly calm over the helmet radio com. "Do you think their noses would be up in the air very long if my ship were crippled?"
Further communication was drowned out by the terrible thunder of a broadside volley. The five enemy ships on the land went up in a tornado of explosions and glowing flames.
I groaned aloud when the capital city and the harbor appeared on the viewscreens. The entire terrain was a single crater. All that was left of the buildings of Atlopolis were a few smoking ruins. Mile-wide thermal impact patterns had seared the countryside. There where we had installed our stationary impulse weapons, dark mushroom clouds towered over the landscape. Capt. Feltif did not answer. Our calls were not even met with an answering echo. I realized then that my ground commandos did not exist anymore. What had happened to the settlers I could well imagine.
In deep space another overlap front was forming again. We noticed it because of a strange discoloration of the stars and a shimmering in the atmosphere. And now the enemy added his renewed attacks to the forces of nature.
The Tosoma was barely capable of flight by now and Tarth flew it totally on manual controls. The autopilot facilities had ceased to function and all command links to engine and power room control centers had gone out of commission. The temperature rose in the Command Central, indicating that terrible fires must be raging around us.
I carried out what I had planned to do. It was imperative at all costs to keep the battleship airborne as long as possible so that it could provide a protective cover until the robot-controlled entrance locks of the undersea dome had been opened.
For security reasons a control had been set up that was based on a few individual vibratory identities. There were only three Arkonides that the gates would open for. Any visitors not thus recognized by the dome's robot brain would not only be left swimming helplessly before the great steel portals; they would be shot by the powerful weapons of the fortress.
The men who were authorized to enter were Capt. Feltif, chief of ground forces and the person responsible for evacuation measures—now missing; the new chief mathematician, Kosol, who was located on board my flagship; and I was the third person whose individual vibrations would be recognized by the robot crew.
I had to see to it as quickly as possible now that Kosol got underway. He had to use one of the pressure-screened undersea vehicles to get down below and open the gates so that the entry would b
e clear for us. While he was busy with that, I was to run a defense with the Tosoma against any possible interference attacks and prepare to make a blitz landing when I could get the men to safety. We assumed that the enemy had not detected the presence of the undersea dome, since the surface gun positions had offered much more obvious targets.
I brought our coasting speed to a stop and brought the still usable antigrav fields into play. The battleship hovered in the air above the razed harbor area. The helmet radio of my combat spacesuit worked flawlessly in response to a hand button control.
"Atlan to chief mathematician Kosol. Project Salvage now in effect. Leave your station, land in your flying spacesuit and proceed to open the locks of the pressure dome. Kosol, calling Kosol, please answer!"
Within a second or so the answer returned. The face of a young officer appeared on the mini-screen inside my helmet, on a level just above my eyes.
"Lt. Einkal, Eminence, fire-fighting post 18. Chief mathematician Kosol is dead; the computer section is burning—all bulkhead hatches sealed off. The adjacent compartments are also on fire. Fresh air keeps coming in through large rents in the hull. Over and out!"
I heard my own involuntary outcry over this news. Close beside me, Tarth swung around in his commander seat. He had understood more swiftly than I.
"Out of here, Admiral!" he shouted at me. "Out! Get out as fast as you can! I'll handle the coverage of the retreat. Go down there, open the dome and then give me the landing instructions over the helmet radio com. Get going—what are you waiting for?"
"I—I will not leave my flagship prior to my crew!" I said harshly.
Tarth laughed humorlessly. He was incredibly cool and collected. "I'll have to throw you out. You're obligated by duty to save your men, above all. I don't need you to skipper the ship since no more tactical decisions are involved. Open the dome, Atlan! Kosol is dead and Feltif is missing. In ½ hour the time-front will be here and all life will disappear into the other plane. Don't worry about the enemy ships—I can take care of those space-going sewer pipes. You know I'm no greenhorn when it comes to atmospheric in-fighting. Now you get going!"