by Ryder Stacy
Rock could see that the whiz kid had aged already just since they’d left C. C. It was amazing what life and death responsibility, having to make split second decisions, did to a kid. It was in the eyes, always in the eyes. Already the youth was getting a darker, less innocent look in them. Rock felt bad about that too. But disillusionment was only the first casualty of the soul.
“Then we’ll have to get ahead of them,” Rock said. “Like right now.”
“Without any maneuvering with the Frenchies?” Connors asked nervously. None of them wanted the great space battle—though they knew they had to.
“Are they still firing down?” Rock asked Rajat.
“Uh—yeah, they’re really messing up Eastern Europe with their laser stuff. I mean they must have every battery in the place on. Firing twenty, thirty times a minute, with long sustained beams. Thousands of square miles must be on fire down there.”
Rock prayed Century City wasn’t burning. But he didn’t say anything, no sense worrying these two even more. Besides, the Earth was turned so that America was yet safe in its night.
“How do we get there—to the Wheel’s orbit—the fastest, no bullshit way?” Rock asked. “And I don’t want none of this orbiting around the Earth three times to get momentum kind of stuff. We’ve got to blitzkrieg them, in their own Nazi style.”
“Well—it’s pretty dangerous, but theoretically possible,” Rajat said, as Connors pushed a few buttons and gave commands here and there, getting the ship out of neutral and ready for orbital change—flight.
“We’ve been working on a number of different approaches on computer. The approved way is, of course, the one you already rejected—what they call the triple pass, using the ship’s elliptical orbit around the Earth to create a slingshot effect, to either rise up or descend with very little exertion of power. But it would take at least sixteen hours—and—”
“Get to the good part,” Rock said impatiently. “Sorry to cut you off, but in combat situations—we’ve got to be fast—there’s not time to go through long explanations.”
“Sorry, Rock—forgot myself,” Rajat said, embarassed for a moment. He was in fact used to sitting back and having long drawn-out discussions with his professors and science peers back at C.C. on everything under the sun.
“Well the quick way,” he said suddenly, “we use a maxi-main burn of the core engine to fly into low orbit, almost out of the stratosphere, and move in a straight line right under their orbit on the far side of the Earth. Then we use all boosters to come up. Could come in almost literally behind them. Wouldn’t be be expecting us, that’s for sure.”
“And the bad news?” Rock asked as he strapped himself in.
“We’d have to go so low, we might come out of orbit. Rock—the spaceballs—I don’t know how good they’d do down so far, or for that matter the Eiffel Tower. I mean we’d be down to about ninety miles, the very lower limit of spaceflight. And that’s pushing it.”
“Calculate the absolute iowest orbit you can take us down in,” Rock said, “and still get us through. Maybe we can enter at extremely high velocity, you know, get a running start, just power our way through.”
“Well, it’s going to be delicate,” Rajat said, nodding his head from side to side. “The higher the speed, the more friction created. Of course we need to maintain a minimal speed—ah damn—I’m being wordy! Just give me five minutes, I’ll have your answers! Connors, you take control and head her around. Like Rock says, we can at least get a run in near-planet space to build up a little speed. Take her out to coordinate A57/B-789A at 2,000 miles, co-terminate Number three and four at a 90 burn!”
“Roger,” Connors replied, and quickly repeated his commands to Louis XIV who was flying alongside the Dynosoar in the pearl ship.
The Astro Frenchie relayed the instructions to the others and the entire fleet turned Earthward and started moving in a deceleration trajectory.
They had to go slow at first, towing the huge explosive-laden Eiffel Tower from out of its shroud of space junk. The combined ships pulled hard on the great monument, taking it like a sword from out of a sheath and then out of the junk ring. The entire fleet assembled behind the golden-glinting Eiffel with two of the pearl ships guiding it from the front. Rock’s Dynasoar and Louis XIV’s ships floated just ahead of it.
“Will you look at that!” Rajat said as they all peered at the collection of ragtag ships that spread out for miles behind them. “A fleet of garbage.”
“Junk or not—the fate of the Earth rests with what we do in the next minutes,” Rock said. “Attention, Wheel Strike Force,” Rock radioed back to his own men. “Full spacesuit and battle gear. Make sure you have shoes fully magnetized and charged up—and your weapons as well. Sorry, we didn’t give you more time for space combat training. But— God bless all of you. Fight like bastards; don’t throw up in your suits. Throw up now! I’ll see you on the far side of the Earth.”
Twenty-Five
“Petrograd, Minsk, Stalinville—all burning,” Col. Killov sneered with a mad glee in his pinhole eyes. “All aflame like they’ve been hit with A-bombs.” He was beside himself with the intoxication of power. The laser beams on the Wheel—which his kidnapped Red Army scientists had worked on under threat of torture and death twenty-four hours a day—were functioning perfectly. Beyond Killov’s wildest expectations. For not only could he aim them with pinpoint accuracy, but their destructive power was far greater than he had anticipated. “That will teach Premier Vassily not to take me lightly . . . Can’t wait to do America—Ha!”
He popped two more Elevals and then a single B-tab to counter the others. He was on so many drugs now, dozens of different ones a day, that Killov had to keep adding more to bring down the effect of the last. Up and down he went, swinging from elation to psychotic depression at any moment. That was what made him so feared. For he had killed men for just being near him when in a foul mood. But he was feeling good now, real good.
“Yes, yes, what is it?” he asked as Col. Heinrick and the Führer Glock stood behind him, waiting impatiently. Somehow their leadership in this whole venture had been first diluted, then cut off completely. Without their even realizing it, Killov had taken control of the entire military and their internal security apparatus controlling the Wheel and the several dozen huge space tugs and barges. Their Nazi culture had survived challenges over the last century up here in orbit. But now it had succumbed to a greater evil. It had been a mistake to bring Killov into this, they could see that now. Even though he had made the men work far harder than they ever had, had gotten the scientific know-how to make the Wheel’s mega-weapons systems function—something they had never been able to do—it had been a mistake. But it was too late. Killov had consolidated his power, had taken over the whole thing right beneath their noses, and it was Killov who the Reich’s troops responded to now.
“Ah, Col. Killov,” the Führer said, stepping forward, suddenly deciding to assert himself for once with the Skull. For he was a powerful man as well. Sure, the Führer thought, perhaps he had let things go a little—but now he would stop it in its tracks, take back control of his little empire in the sky, at this key moment of victory.
“Yes, yes, what is it?” Killov growled impatiently, not wanting to lift his eyes from the burning cities of the planet Earth which spun before him on a huge screen. The great continents were like a child’s clay arrangements below him, with funnels of smoke rising where his lasers had struck. He wanted to keep raking the Soviet Union. And when he had taken out all of Vassily’s forces—then he would move the Wheel over the U.S., and search for Century City. Ah, that would be his greatest pleasure, to destroy Rockson and his friends, like ants underneath a flaring match.
“I think that it’s time that the plans of the Fourth Reich were begun. The targets you are selecting are those of your own pleasure. And while they doubtless should be destroyed—I think now it would be better to wait and—” Damn, his words weren’t coming out right. He wasn’t bei
ng nearly forceful enough. And Killov’s eyes now glared at him, with ultimate power in them, like twin lasers.
“You’re trying to say—you want to take back control over the entire operation, over the attack system that I’ve set up and have working in perfect synchronized motion.”
“Yes, it is mine and I demand control,” the Führer exclaimed, now talking loudly. He walked around the front of the holograph globe that rose up in the center of the command room of the Wheel. The control center that ran the awesome firepower now fully fired up and ready to destroy. A hundred swastika-armbanded officers were monitoring systems. The Earth spun like a smoking beachball. It was a crystal ball of death into which Killov stared.
No little ant would get in his way. You could bet Lenin’s balls on that, Killov thought, staring down the Führer, making the wall-eyed jerk’s lips twitch in fear.
“It’s mine and I demand that you relinquish control,” the Führer went on, as he pulled out the mini-laser-luger from the block holster at his side. He walked around until he stood opposite Killov so the blue and green and white pearl of the Earth spun between them, just at stomach level.
Killov’s skeletal face burned with a dark glow as he saw that the ant had dared pull a weapon on him. For such as he was reserved special tortures.
“Yes, mine, mine,” the Führer was shouting with a twisted smile on his face. His lock of black hair fell down across his forehead. He had put up with it too damned long. But now, at this moment of Glory, he would claim it all back again. It felt good to exert control. He was the Führer, he was strong, he was—
“Yours?” Killov grinned, forcing his trembling mouth to move back at the corners so that his dried-out lips cracked and little rivulets of red began oozing down onto his chin. He hadn’t smiled for a long, long time. “Of course, how could I have gotten so wrapped up in my own excitement? My apologies, Mein Führer. It’s all yours.” He stood and mock-bowed at the man, and then held his hands out toward him in a gesture of Nazi salute. “Hail the Führer!!”
Only the invisible gas that sprayed out of a ring on his right index finger right over the top of the holograph globe and into the Führer’s face was not a tribute. It was a deadly poison that instantly rotted the entire nervous system and brain into a smelly soup.
“Wha—” was the only half word that the Führer spoke before his whole body stiffened, before he had a chance to even try to squeeze the trigger. He began convulsing wildly as his face twisted into the most painful expression that Col. Heinrick who was standing a few feet away watching it all with horrified eyes, had ever seen. Within ten seconds, a purple slime came rushing out of the man’s ears, nose, mouth, as his spine and brain just melted into flesh-jello. It gurgled out boiling as if alive. The Führer’s corpse crumbled to the floor and twitched wildly like an electric current was passing through it. Then it stopped moving and lay there as slime continued to pulse out from every orifice, making the whole body shrink in on itself like a vacuum was sucking out its innards.
“Col. Heinrick,” Killov said, letting his hand fall to his side as he turned and addressed the subordinate. “You can die right now like him, or you can become my second-in-command of all space forces. You are a smart, ruthless man. I need men like that.”
“I—I—will work for you, Führer Killov,” Heinrick said loudly, throwing his arm up in Nazi salute, his head stiffly bent, staring down at Killov’s feet.
“Good, good,” Killov said, as he turned his back toward the Earth projection, which beckoned him like a victim does the murderer. “And remember, I know all that goes on. I am more than human, Heinrick. There is a dark force directing my life. A force I serve. Do not betray me, or even think of betraying me for one second—or I will know and your end will be even more terrible that your late Führer’s.”
“Yes, Great One,” Heinrick stiff-armed again. “You need not worry on that account. I shall never betray you.” He saluted again for good measure.
The Führer had been too weak anyway, too spineless, Heinrick thought. This Killov was very strong, he would take them to the top, make his own version of the Fourth Reich live. Yes, Heinrick could see without question that Killov was a mega-killer. His dark visions made the deceased Glock’s plans look like a minor operation.
“Now—what I have been waiting for, whetting my appetite for,” Killov said as his frigid eyes stared into the spinning hologram. “Moscow—the Premier. Vasiliy will be there in the Kremlin. I will burn him to ashes and the entire Politboro as well. I don’t need their selection as the one to run the world. I have selected myself!
“Laser Control,” Killov screamed into the mike hanging above the spinning Earth. “Target Moscow. All ground-directed lasers, set to full intensity, widest beam. I want to leave this city nothing but a solid sheet of fire.”
“Yes sir,” the command post Nazi shouted back as he ordered his men to adjust all dials to target the coordinates.
The Wheel turned slightly in orbit as the angle was corrected for proper laser targeting. It took about five minutes as Killov stood staring at the Earth with Heinrick behind him stiff as a board, he couldn’t bring himself to look at the oozing swamp that had been a man just minutes before. It smelled real bad, too.
“Target locked in,” the laser commander snapped back. “Firing to— Wait, Colonel! We’re getting a reading. There’s an attack force coming in from low Earth orbit. Spaceships, hundreds of them—and some sort of immense structure in their midst . . . We’re being attacked, I repeat attacked!”
Suddenly alarms were going off all over the place as the Wheel’s automatic defense warning systems went into operation. The Wheel’s computers picked up the Frenchie fleet at last, having separated its image from all the space debris.
“Forget Moscow,” Killov shouted at the mike. “Turn all laser batteries around. Turn the Wheel now. We’ll wipe out these stupid bugs who dare attack. It has to be the damned French Frogs! It’s good that it’s happening. We’ll destroy them now. Then reign free in the skies to destroy below as we please.”
He slammed some dials at a panel set on the outside of the hologram globe and suddenly the image of the Earth vanished and in its place, coming from around the eastern side of the planet almost at horizon level—the image of a thousand odd objects closed in. A fleet of garbage, filthy mishappen strings of junk metal balls connected by plastic tubing. There were all in an immense phalanx, coming up from low orbit, like a spear. And at the very lead was some bizarre kind of structure that looked like the Eiffel Tower. And it was coming straight toward him.
Killov wondered if he was going mad. There couldn’t be an Eiffel Tower up here, could there? Perhaps, finally, he had taken too many drugs. He was hallucinating completely now.
He dropped two SuperNorms—huge neutralizing agents—to absorb some of the other chemicals he had in his blood. The horse-sized pills got stuck in his throat and he began coughing violently, leaning over the globe as Col. Heinrick stepped forward and began slapping him on the back, trying to help him get it all down like a baby who’s having trouble with his formula.
Twenty-Six
“There it is,” Rajat shouted out, as the Dynasoar came flaming up out of the low near Earth orbit and he spotted the immense five-mile-wide Wheel which turned slowly. Their low orbit maneuver had worked—though not for all of them. One of the junk ship strings had gotten caught down a little low and suddenly was glowing red hot and being pulled down by the Earth’s atmosphere. It now disappeared below them, and exploded into fiery fragments with all five-hundred-eight aboard, a warning of the fate that awaited them all if they didn’t watch their every move.
“It’s firing, Rock, it’s firing,” the Indian screamed out from the console. “Laser beams are coming from the Wheel.”
Even as he spoke, one of the outer junk sphere-ships of the phalanx suddenly burst into flame and exploded out in all directions, the people within its red-hot sphere shot out like hornets from a sprayed hive. The unlucky Frenc
hies floated afire into space spinning like meteors.
Then lasers were dancing all across the sky everywhere near them. Another light-beam made contact with a sphere ship on the far side of the phalanx and this too just evaporated in the center, and the pressure differential shot the other nearby spheres all out in every direction, like they were being fired from rifles.
The flaming garbage ship disappeared spinning off in a tight spiral heading toward the Earth, as flames poured out from numerous openings.
“Eiffel Tower tugs, get her going toward the Wheel!” Rock screamed out. “And then get the hell out of there!”
“Tugs mouvez le Eiffel,” Louis XIV began, translating to the Tower pullers. They began accelerating, pouring on the power from all four sides. They doubled, then tripled their speed, throwing their scavenged rocket engines units to the max so the whole tower vibrated like it was going to come apart. They drove the huge tower to within thirty, than twenty miles of the Wheel, accelerating with every mile, firing small makeshift impact missiles toward the giant Nazi space wheel all the while.
“Tell them to detach themselves,” Rockson screamed out as he saw the scene unfolding on the video monitor. “They’ll never get out of there in time—”
“They’re not going to detachment,” Louis XIV shouted back as his ship raced alongside Rock’s, about a hundred yards away. “They’re attackez avec their lives. Kamakazee Francais.”
“Christ,” Rock groaned. These foul-smelling French son-of-a-bitches were even braver than he had given them credit for. Suddenly there was a tremendous explosion right next to the Dynasoar and the whole ship shook violently. Rajat checked a wild spin-off towards planetside.
“Damage?” Rock screamed.
“Nothing bad, Rock,” Connors shouted back above the din of all the sound of war being picked up by the ship’s audio-relay sensors. But the Frenchie garbage ships were being picked off like so many flies all around them as laser after laser snapped up from the immense Wheel some fifteen miles away now, and closing fast.