by T I WADE
As America Two began braking for Ceres, two weeks ahead, the astronauts planned a system of attack.
Jonesy couldn’t fly, but Maggie could, and wanted to. She was now the most experienced pilot, and Saturn was more than happy to allow her mother to take her shuttle’s left seat. Mars had another job, and would be working with his father.
Pluto Katherine was given the promotion of Head Gunner aboard the mother ship, and with Jenny and Jane Burgos, and Gary Darwin being the only male, they were a formidable laser force.
Lunar and her husband kept their positions on SB-V, and every thought of what lay ahead on Ceres went through the morning briefings.
Max’s next report a week out from Ceres was what the crew aboard America Two wanted to hear. The large formation of Matt ships were heading away from Ceres and towards Europa. They were already putting distance between them and where they had rested. Ryan and his crew wondered what was left on the dwarf planet. They knew the Matts wouldn’t leave their supply station unarmed.
They found out 50,000 miles from the tiny planet about a tenth the size of Earth’s moon, seven days later.
“Bogeys on radar, 16 enemy ships heading towards us from the white planet, currently at 15,000 feet above the surface, 40,000 knots forward speed. Location of enemy ships’ exit position from planet now logged on computer.” stated radar as the last briefing had just started. At the same time, Max’s radio message came through. As usual he sounded happy. All the crew seemed to be happy living in Mattville.
“Great news on two successful projects,” Max began as the crew readied for an attack on their ship in about 2 hours. “Third silicone glass panel in place, the gold has been poured, we will be attempting a walk tomorrow from the base to begin piling the dirt and rocks. We moved the shield outside before we closed the final hole. It is pretty noticeable out there but as yet we haven’t seen anything on radar. I’m getting pretty sure we are the only people on this planet. The idea is for three guys to live and work inside the shield covering the gold with rocks and dirt. The shield is only a quarter inflated, and has enough air in there for three guys for several days. Joey and I will be heading out with the crew of three for the 3-mile walk outside the tunnel, and will return within our 4-hour limit. We will return to walk back with them once the job is done. I know you want the latest on the Matt ships. I headed through the tunnel yesterday, 12 hours ago. All the ships are still heading in the same direction, and we can see an advancement of travel of the large flight. With your distance suggestions, the closest ships are now more than a week away from returning to Ceres, once you attack. We finally had time to inflate the Zodiac, once we had carried it down to the lake below us. Ruler Roo and Joey headed out, paddling with the two oars with cords tied to the rear of the boat. They rowed for an hour, and we let out ten cords, 3,000 feet before we had to bring them back. They saw a never-ending roof above their heads, and it sloped upwards at a gradual pace. It had risen to about 40 feet when they reached the end of the cord line. Other than that they saw nothing, only water and roof, so that lake down there is far bigger than we ever thought. A never ending supply of good old fashioned water. End of message, over.”
Ryan asked Max to head back to the globe room a soon as he could, as they were about to be attacked. He wanted an update to see if the ships had turned around.
Nobody aboard the mother ship could understand how the enemy knew they were in the vicinity, and even Roo was asked back on Mars. He didn’t know either.
The Matt ships headed straight for the mother ship so they knew Ryan and crew were heading towards them. The two shuttles were ready and an hour later undocked to engage the enemy.
VIN and Mars were aboard SB-IV as passengers and sat in the rear cockpit seats as the two experienced astronauts headed straight towards the 16 enemy ships.
“Distance to enemy, 27,000 miles, shuttles, I don’t want you out further than 3,000 miles ahead of us,” ordered Kathy Richmond from the Bridge. Ryan still didn’t trust himself to lead the defense of the ship, and Kathy being an ex-Air force colonel had filled the gap while VIN was on his mission.
At about 10,000 miles to target, the mother ship could open fire, although not very accurately. The same could be said about the shuttle lasers from 7,000 miles.
Even though great speeds were obtained in space, it also took a long time for distances to be covered. The mother ship was heading towards the planet at a slowing 27,000 knots, the enemy ships were heading towards the mother ship at 40,000 knots, so it still took an hour before anything happened.
When it did it happened fast. The Matt ships began firing as they always did, far out and they began calibrating their shots. This time there was nowhere to hide and as the radio disturbances in the space around the attacking ships told them the enemy was firing there was nothing they could do. The lasers would produce a beam that could be seen by everybody, but the maser firings couldn’t be seen by the Homo sapiens, only registering on their equipment as sort of radio wave disturbances.
The first battle began quickly once the opposing forces got into range. SB-V and Michael Price got the first hit at 6,100 miles, Saturn got the second and the first volley from America Two hit five out of fourteen still in formation.
The Matt ships immediately changed direction and headed out in all directions as their ships began exploding around them. It was imperative that the Astermine astronauts not allow the enemy within 5,000 miles of the mother ship, and both shuttles at full power headed out behind as many as possible to cut off the attacking enemy.
Saturn got her second and the mother ship cleared the other three in front of her lasers. With empty space around her, Maggie turned towards SB-V heading in the opposite direction and she saw another puff of an exploding ship far in the distance followed by two more.
“I have a bogey on my tail,” shouted Lunar as Michael blew up a Matt ship less than 10 miles in front of him.
“Not anymore,” replied Jenny Burgos smiling. “Six bogeys still on radar.”
“As air battles always ended up, the fight became spacecraft following one another, trying to get a hit. It was over within minutes as the four gunners aboard the mother ship picked off the rest from a safe distance.
Then the two shuttles headed towards the white dwarf planet 40,000 miles ahead of them.
Max’s voice came over the radios an hour later telling the Astermine crew that the 160 ships had turned around and were heading back to Ceres. Kathy Richmond believed that they would be a week too late to help their fellow crew members.
“OK, astronauts” stated Kathy once Max had been thanked for his report. He had been asked by Igor to do the same the next day. “We need this planet to be ours within 24 hours, the enemy will be here in week, and we need to be ready for them. You guys know what to do. We just have to see if they have any outside ground defenses around their base, or bases, over.”
It was weird to see a laser beam this time speed pass the two shuttles as they closed on the little planet an hour later. Up to then nobody knew that the Matts had similar weapons, and at 10,000 miles, it was pretty accurate.
“Maggie to Kathy, they have ground cover, lasers, semi-accurate up to I’d say about 12,000 miles, so keep your orbit outside their range of fire until we have destroyed their ground defenses, over.”
Three more beams of green laser swept passed them, the onboard computers locating and memorizing each blast.
“SB-V, so far we count two ground sites, less than a mile apart, over,” stated Saturn.
“Copy that,” replied Michael Price. “I confirm locks on two sites, hold on, two more beams headed passed us about a mile off our starboard bow. They both came from a new site. My computer readouts show a line of three gun sites about 600 yards apart, my cameras are locking onto them. Distance to target 5,700 miles, over.”
“Lunar increase our separation distance by another 10 miles, over.” Stated Maggie.
A minute later the area around both craft had beams passi
ng within a couple of miles. The lasers weren’t accurate, but they were getting closer.
Maggie ordered Lunar to change direction and they headed at an angle to the plant and within 12 minutes, and at 15,000 feet came over the enemy base area from the rear. Their computers locked onto the locations of ground fire and as they passed overhead weaving about two of the three gun placements erupted into balls of blue energy.
“They had blue shields over their gun placements. I counted five in total, two destroyed,” stated Michael Price as they once again headed over the horizon at speed.
“I counted five blue shields,” agreed Saturn. “Mars and VIN are helmeting up, VIN said to go around one more time, over.”
The planet was small, and the shuttles struggled to keep a sensible orbit at high speed. There was little to no gravity on the planet.
Again as they passed overhead at a different angle they blasted the gun placements getting two more as three ships suddenly went spaceward from the same locations, right in front of the two shuttles. The two different flights of spacecraft missed each other by less than a mile.
Saturn was fast and hit one seconds before Michael Price got the second, and they headed over the horizon as America Two opened up at the outgoing craft. They were still out of any real range, and Kathy hoped the enemy ship would rise up to attack her. She was right.
Maggie took SB-IV down rapidly and landed behind a slight rocky rise the computers stated was half a mile from the last gun placement. Lunar had headed over for her third pass, the laser gun placement hadn’t fired, Michael didn’t get an explosion, and SB-V went vertical behind the five climbing enemy ships.
VIN, already inside the docking port, and feet off from the surface was already opening the outer hatch. He closed it and within seconds, Mars was climbing into the port and a minutes later he floated gently down from the wing and not realizing the lack of gravity bounced twenty feet high to join his father behind what looked like a lightly-colored rocky outcrop.
They watched as SB-VI rose, rapidly turned and headed upwards and away from the Matt base like a helicopter dropping troops.
“We have very little gravity, be careful and tread lightly,” VIN told his son. “This gravity is less than on DX2014.
They peered over the top of the outcrop and saw what looked like a blue shield in the distance about 600 yards away. It wasn’t that easy to see it, as the colors of the planet’s surface wasn’t black, or grey like the asteroids or planets, but was more of a pink sandy color.
Three more Matt ships floated out of three different places the same distance and headed spaceward after Lunar. Only SB-V was in communications range. Maggie and the mother ship were over the horizon. The space above the planet’s surface seemed alive with light. It certainly wasn’t all sunlight.
“VIN to Astronauts, three more ships heading up.”
“Copy VIN, will look out for them and relay to the others,” replied Michael Price. VIN heard him get his message to the other two ships, as SB-V headed away somewhere and the radio went quiet.
The two men carefully headed towards the blue shield. Where the ships had exited from, both had seen the telltale signs of more blue shields, and five minutes later they saw two tiny explosions slightly larger than bight stars high above them, and Saturn giving out the good news.
As it was always in a spacesuit, there was no noise, or anything apart from any light entering the helmet visor from outside, or radio communications from inside the suit. Both men carefully looked around every few steps, their hand lasers at the ready.
Both carried sacks in their left hands, explosives and even a few old fashioned hand grenades in VIN’s pack he had stashed away since the early days. Mars had seen them, and had asked what the six baseball-size balls of steel were.
They reached a round blackened area forty feet across. Both men could see that it had once been a type of weapon pointing upwards, it was a blackened slither of metal, and the explosion had been from a blue shield exploding.
“Mars and I are in the blast area, do not fire at the base, over.”
“Copy that,” stated all three ships’ pilots now high above them. Saturn had been telling Lunar that she had got one when VIN came up on radio.
“Two more up here and the skies are clear,” added Saturn.
The fifth blue shield was 50 yards away, and they headed in that direction, the surface of the planet dark around them. VIN made sure that he and Mars were not silhouettes against the lighter area of space around the planet by making sure that they higher ground behind them. Their silver suits blended in well with the landscape. Inside the blue shield, they could see two Matts handling some sort of ten foot long weapon, its end was sticking out of the shield wall. The blue shield was just big enough to fit in the men and the weapon, and VIN slunk in behind the men and just had enough room to get his body in before one of the men turned to face a silver helmeted spacesuit giant two feet higher than he was.
VIN was fast, and very strong for a half-metal person, and before Mars could slip through the blue wall, VIN had connected both Matts on the head hard with his sack of explosives. He was sure the hand grenades had helped send the two small Matts to sleep.
Instinctively Mars crouched as the explosives hit the second man a split second after hitting the first. His father used a lot of power in the swing, and both Matts slipped to the ground and lay very still.
As the second man gently fell to the floor, a large cavern door began to open in the flat ground twenty yards from where they were standing, and the blueness of another interior blue shield lightened the light surface.
“I think more ships are exiting,” stated Mars over his radio. “Fifth ground unit is ours for future use. VIN is going to try and use their own weapon on their own craft.”
“Copy that 70 miles from target, both shuttles coming in at low level, will get them if you guys can’t. Tell us when we can enter the fight, over,” replied his mother-in-law.
Three more ships exiting from the cavern, we don’t know if there are more exit doors out there. Hard to see from zero altitude, over.” stated Mars.
“Sorry I can’t figure out how to work this thing,” added VIN. “You guys up there go ahead, there is a metal hatch into the base next to the weapon. Just don’t kill the shield. Mars let us make ourselves welcome.”
As VIN said that two lines of laser light appeared from over the horizon and a massive blast lit up the planet’s surface a few hundred feet directly above them. VIN pulled Mars into the shield as parts of hot metal began ricocheting against the wall of the blue shield.
They quickly prepared to enter the vertical ladder down into the bowls of the planet, and lights were dimmed as a second explosion suddenly lit up the surface of the planet above, and the horizontal door began to slowly close.
It was dim when they entered the large cavern one after the other on a metal ladder that dropped down to the surface forty feet below. They were pretty much invisible behind a slatted metal protection tube around the ladder, and they could see more spacecraft being prepared in the wide cavern below. As fast as they could they scaled down the long ladder, both feeling vulnerable.
“Third bogey is history” stated Penny Burgos far too loudly from America Two over their helmet intercoms and nearly made VIN fall the remaining ten feet. He wouldn’t have hurt himself as the gravity was extremely weak.
VIN looked around as he reached the floor while Mars waited above him, still hidden by the metal shield.
“What do we do now, Dad?” Mars asked.
“I don’t know, trash the place,” replied VIN as his attention was diverted to the cavern wall right next to their position. “Look! There are hangar doors in the cavern walls. One has just opened. Go up ten feet Mars, I need to hide.”
Through the open slats in the metal work, both men watched as a robot pulled out what seemed the last Matt spacecraft from a hole in the cavern wall. The area the spacecraft was pulled out of did not have a blue shield, ther
e were no Matts in the long tunnel like cavern that stretched into the planet for at least a couple of hundred feet. It seemed the robot was pulling out the last aircraft in that tunnel, as another three ships in the cavern, and inside the blue shield lifted off as the large cavern door opened above them.
“Three more enemy ships exiting in about 30 seconds,” started VIN into his intercom. “Don’t explode the blue shield Lunar, or Mars and I will be toast, over.”
“Copy that,” replied Lunar. “Setting up for a fly pass, 48 miles out. No bogeys up here VIN. Maggie will be coming over horizon in about 60 seconds. These guys are timing it perfectly for us, over.”
“It looks like there are three more bogeys after this flight about to exit, and they are out of reserves. I want to try and save the last three Matt ships so that we can have a space force here until we get new ships, over.”
VIN continued watching as the three ships exited spaceward, leaving the floor area for the last three to be pulled out of three separate storage tunnels. Under robotic power, they entered into the blue shields filling the large cavern and six Matts walked towards the ships to pilot their craft.
“Have the three ships visual,” stated Lunar from above. That gave VIN the information he was wanting. He took his laser off safety, pulled Mars’s spacesuit leg to tell him to follow, and made his move.
VIN Noble walked in the direction of the pilots. They seemed to be the only Matts in the cavern. He was sure that the cavern was being controlled from the command center, and he didn’t know if they had any forms of video or not, but he took his chances.