Day of the Dragonstar

by David Bischoff

  “ . . . like they’re close-approaching for docking,” said Bracken. “I’ve tried reaching them on the intercom but I’m getting no response . . .”

  “They must know we’re having a communications problem,” said Marshall. “Probably don’t have their own equipment tuned to our specific frequency. Proceed with docking, Commander .. , .”

  Canter slowed his scooter as he approached the ships. The ore-ship was nestling in beside the Goddard, lining up its docking collar with the Deep-Space cruiser. He watched as the two ships became joined, siamese-twin-like, at the waists, and listened on the intercom.

  “Ore-ship docking completed,” said Bracken. “Their airlock is recycling. We should know what’s going on in a minute . . . Stand by, Captain . . .”

  After securing the scooter to the hull, Canter drifted across to the open-lock of the Goddard, on the opposite side of the fuselage from the docking collar. He cycled the lock, stepped inside, and pulled off his EVA helmet, hoping that someone on the boarding crew would recognize him. This was no time to get himself shot.

  The main corridor was silent as he entered. Then he heard footsteps to his left. Looking up, he saw a crowd of men wearing olive-green jumpsuits, LS-helmets, and visors, and carrying weapons. The man in the lead turned and raised his rifle to his waist, aiming it. Canter threw himself against the wall, raised his arms in the bulky EVA suit, and started screaming to identify himself.

  The lead man hesitated for a moment, and two others joined him, walking slowly up the corridor, their guns trained on him.

  “It’s Canter! . . . Rassim! I’m Rassim!” He felt a knot growing in his throat, and he feared that soon no words would come. They were going to shoot him, he was certain.

  The lead man stopped, gestured him to move into the center of the corridor with the barrel of his weapon. “Rassim who?” he said softly.

  “Pierre . . . Pierre Rassim! I’m with the Jiha!”

  The leader lifted his visor. He was olive-skinned and wore a neatly trimmed, full-face beard. He smiled ironically. “Why are you here, Rassim?”

  At first, Canter did not understand the question, but suddenly, the correct answer came to him: “I’m here for Ahmad Nesrudah . . .”

  The leader’s shoulders dropped perceptibly as he relaxed his grip on his rifle. “All right,” he said to the other men. “It’s all right,” he said to the other men. The, turning back to Canter, he said, “What’s the situation here?”

  “One man on the bridge. Two back this way in the service module. They won’t be any problem. Nobody on board the smaller ship, and one man inside the entry hatch on a security post. There are only four men at the base camp, Everyone else, including Kemp, is at the other end of the alien ship.” Briefly Canter explained the situation, and told the commando leader about the beacon at the aft-end, which marked the entry hatch.

  “You suggest that we take the men in through there?”

  “That’s where they can control this ship, don’t you see that?”

  “What about these . . . lizard-men? Will they be a problem?”

  Canter shook his head. “I don’t think so . . . from what I understand, they have no technology to speak of. Listen, you’ll only need a handful of men to secure the base camp; I can contact their headquarters and tell them that IASA people are coming aboard, and they won’t suspect a thing. You take the rest of your men down to the other end of the Dragonstar, follow the signal from the beacon, and enter the same way as you were briefed on this entry. You should come up inside the saurian civilization. I’m sure you can take it from there.”

  The leader grabbed Canter by the front of his EVA suit and pushed him against the wall. “This was not in the briefing . . . it sounds crazy to me!”

  “No!, listen . . . no one expected them to move the base camp! We had no idea that they would have access to the control section of the ship! We’ve got to change our plans, or this whole thing is a waste of time. Now, you’ve got to take out the man on the, bridge so that I can use the intercom . . . !”

  The commando leader was going to speak again, but he changed his mind. He released Canter and returned to his lieutenants, whom he briefed quickly. Twelve men remained on board the Goddard while the others were ushered back into the on ship by their bearded leader.

  “This way,” said Canter, leading a lieutenant and six men toward the bridge. The other six went back toward the service module.

  Bracken did not even have a chance to turn around before he caught two bursts of fire. He fell from the chair in a heap, and Canter took his place, flipping on the intercom. “Captain Marshall, this is Doctor Canter . . .”

  “What is it, Doctor? Where’s Bracken?”

  “We’ve got Doctor Kolenkhov and some of the Copernicus Staff on board, Captain. They hitched a ride on the ore-ship, to investigate our radio silence. They request permission to enter the Dragonstar . . .”

  “Doctor Kolenkhov? You’re kidding! Where’s Bracken?”

  “He’s down at the airlock preparing to escort them through the entry hatch.”

  There was a pause before Marshall replied. “Why didn’t Bracken notify me of all this?”

  “He was kind of taken by surprise, Captain. I can’t really blame him.” Canter paused, forced a chuckle from his dry throat. “I mean, if you’ve ever met Doctor Kolenkhov, I think you’d understand . . .”

  Marshall paused, then replied. “Hmm, yes, I’ve heard stories about him . . . supposed to be quite a character. All right, Doctor, tell Bracken I’Il be expecting him. Marshall out.”

  Canter turned and nodded to the commando lieutenant, who turned and led his men from the bridge to the airlock, where Canter passed out EVA gear to the half-dozen men. As they suited up, the other six commandos arrived and began pulling on their own suits.

  Once outside the Goddard, Canter led them through the outer chamber of the lock, took them through, and had them discard the EVA gear and start up the ladder.

  When they reached the platform below the hatch, Canter climbed up, opened it slowly, and saw Captain Marshall standing just down the knoll, waiting for him with another man. He waved as he stepped out onto the spongy ground, and Marshall raised his hand to return the greeting. At that moment, three of the TWC commandos appeared and fired their automatic rifles. Marshall and his underling were cut down by the hail of slugs in an instant.

  “Let’s go!” cried Canter as he began running towards the headquarters dome.

  Across the clearing, near the generating station for the forcefield, stood another man, ostensibly on guard duty. He was shocked into momentary immobility by the sight of the two men being shot down before his eyes, then took cover behind a rack of equipment and started spraying the area with razer fire. Three commandos were lanced by the heat-beams and cooked from the inside out, dead before they hit the ground. Everyone else dove for cover and pinned down the lone sentry with concentrated automatic weapons fire.

  The only other man alive at base headquarters was Commander Douglas Fratz, who had been on break in the headquarters dome. He heard the gunfire, and ran to the window, and he was shocked to see the olive-green troops scampering across the clearing, led by Doctor Canter. As he watched, he realized that it was only a matter of time before they countered the sentry’s position, whoever they were. And Fratz knew what he must do.

  “This is base camp, calling Colonel Kemp! Come in! This is Commander Fratz . . . ! Come in, please!” Fratz waited by the console, expecting the commandos to come bursting through the door any moment. Come on, Colonel!

  “This is Colonel Kemp . . . What is it, Commander?”

  Fratz summarized the events in a few quick sentences while the sounds of gunfire continued outside the dome.

  “Jesus Christ!” said Kemp. “I’m about five klicks from landing the ’thopter there! Can you hang on?”

  “Negative, Colon
el! They’ve got ten, maybe twelve men out there. Heavily armed. Get out of here while you can! Get some help!”

  “Try to hang on, Commander. We’re heading back. Good luck, man . . .”

  Fratz flipped off the radio, and noticed that the sound of gunfire outside had stopped. I can’t believe this is it, he thought. I can’t believe /’m going to die like this . . .

  As he turned to take cover behind the work-table, the door to the room flew open. There were three men wearing olive-green jumpsuits. Fratz didn’t see their guns until the barrels flashed.

  He never heard their report.

  FLYING AT THE highest velocity that Zabriski would risk, the ornithopter struggled against the atmospheric caprices of Artifact One’s interior. Phineas Kemp’s mind was experiencing a separate turbulence. What else could go wrong? He felt like some biblical character being tested by a malevolent and wrathful God. How could the TWC have gotten control of one of our ore-ships?

  Hell. It didn’t matter now, he told himself. What mattered was that they were inside the ship. The base camp had been wiped out. Kemp was certain that the commandos wouldn’t stop there. If they knew where the majority of the crew was located, how would they get across the more than one hundred and fifty klicks of hostile territory? How did they intend to take over Artifact One?

  Well, he thought, unconsciously tightening his seatbelt, feeling the throb of the ornithopter’s engines under his boots.

  They’d probably change the course of the gigantic ship. Now that they had overrun the Goddard, the Heinlein and the base camp, they certainly controlled the new engines that the IASA team had tacked on to guide Artifact One back into an accessible orbit around Earth. No doubt, there waited more TWC ships in the place to which they intended to redirect the alien ship. Once there, the game was entirely theirs. They could explore Artifact One at their leisure. Its secrets would be theirs to unlock.

  However, Kemp and the IASA still had two wild cards to play, as desperate as their situation seemed.

  First, they had the protection of the saurian wall, and hopefully the friendship and esteem of the saurian culture. In normal circumstances, that would not bother the TWC commandos. They could simply fight a war of attrition, with Kemp and his men the inevitable losers once the new destination was reached and the TWC could bring superior weaponry and numbers of troops into play.

  And second, for all practical purposes, Kemp’s team still had control of the prized engines of Artifact One. Not only control, but access. It would take a while to get the mammoth ship to exactly where the TWC wanted it. Any time during that period, the IASA team could stumble not merely onto the secrets of the Dragonstar—but onto the controls and the guidance system as well. If they used them—well, that would be an entirely different ballgame, with the TWC the inevitable losers

  There was no question that the TWC commandos would realize this.

  No question that they would try to do something about it. Kemp wondered what kind of weapons they had. How many men? All that made a great deal of difference.

  He’d gone over the questions with Coopersmith when he’d contacted him by intercom, right after Fratz had warned him away from the base camp. It would be at least an hour before the ’thopter would reach the saurian wall. A lot could happen by then.

  The radio beeped. Kemp flicked on his helmet-mike.

  “Kemp.’”

  “Coopersmith here, Colonel. Doctor Jakes and two of his men and Doctor Lindstrom are in the aft-end—”

  “Now? lan, for Christ’s sakes, We’re under attack!”

  “I know that, and you know that. I don’t think the saurians really understand. I could have spent another two days explaining exactly what is going on with the TWC, and just who they are.”

  “Yes. That’s probably for the best. They must know about everything, if Canter was their inside man, as Fratz had said. They must realize that in order to have full control of the situation, they have to take over this section as well. So, we have to assume that there’re coming, eventually. If they come across the interior, we’ve got plenty of time to prepare.”

  “But Phineas, you know that we found other access points from the exterior. Some quite close to the saurian civilization and the engines.”

  “Quite true. And they’ll be in a hurry, won’t they? You know, Coopersmith, l think we may well be in trouble. Set up some defensive emplacements immediately.. Oh, and Coopersmith. In the saurian mythology, is there anything about a coming Armageddon?”

  “I could ask, Phineas.”

  “Well, you tell them that it may well be here, now.”

  * * *

  The entry shaft and hatch design were virtually identical to the one leading to the IASA base camp. Marcus Jashad, the leader of the ninety-man commando squad, stood on the platform below the hatch, preparing to manually turn the gear-wheel that would free it. He signaled to his men below, then opened the large, rectangular panel.

  Bright light spilled down.

  He climbed up and onto the vine-covered ground, into the strange and rich smells of the interior.

  Something was wrong.

  Jashad could see no sign of any saurian cities. No saurian wall. Nothing at all that Canter had told him about.

  Surrounding the clearing near the hatch were thick stands of primitive forest. Even though Jashad did not know the difference between a cycad and a gingko, he was aware of the strategic obstacle that enclosed his men.

  Where were they?

  He glanced up towards the center of the cylinder, checking the direction of the illuminating rod in an attempt to get his bearings. Behind him, the remainder of the assault team poured out of the entry batch, each man momentarily stunned into immobility as he paused to stare at the hostile surroundings.

  As his lieutenants gathered about him, the leader turned to one of them. “Get Canter on the radio. IASA frequency at the base camp . . .”

  “Fatah, here . . .”

  “Get me Canter,” said the leader. “The so-called ‘Rassim.’”

  There was a pause while the leader waited. The forest around him and his men was alive with sounds: scurrying in the ground cover, insect-buzzings, an occasional cry of hunger or agony.

  “Rassim here.”

  “This is Jashad,” said the leader. “What have you done to us?!”

  “”What’s the matter? What’re you talking about? Where are you?”

  Jashad related their predicament angrily.

  “All right,” said Rassim/Canter, explaining that he had not had time to properly locate an entrance within the saurian barrier. “Continue to broadcast a distress-call with your radio, and I’ll use our scanning equipment to get a fix on your position. Stand-by . . .”

  Jashad held the radio tightly, trying to hide the frustration and fear he felt. Some of his men were anxiously guarding the perimeter of the small clearing, while others were pointing skyward, where a group of Pterosaurs glided by like large, burnt-orange kites.

  The radio crackled, and Rassim/Canter’s voice was heard once again. “Rassim here . . . Sorry for the delay. The instruments placed you along the same longitudinal axis as the base camp, and you are within sight of the flat end of the cylinder. Can you see it from where you are?”

  “Yes,” said Jashad. “It is partially obscured by clouds and haze, but it is visible.”

  “Proceed towards the flat end, and you should be able to see the barrier within five klicks, and be careful . . . there’s supposed to be some rough customers out there.”

  Jashad laughed. “Rassim, it is we who are the ‘rough customers’!”

  “Whatever you say . . . Anything before I break off?”

  Jashad paused. “Yes, there is one survivor on the ore-ship. The Command pilot, a miserable drunk named Welsh. Have him taken to the base camp and dry him out. We may be needing him to ferry our tr
oops back to Ramadas Khan. Can you take care of that, Rassim?”

  “No problem. He’s on the bridge, right?”

  “Locked in with one of my men. We are going in now. Jashad out.”

  “Good luck. Rassim out.”

  The bearded assassin assembled his men, briefed them quickly, and struck out into the forest. They employed a point man, followed by a two-man file which snaked through the maze of trees cautiously. Before they had covered the first kilometer, the men were feeling the effects of the muggy, warm temperature. Perspiration soaked their fatigues a deep, dark green. It was at that point that Jashad noticed something different about the surrounding forest.

  It was silent.

  Abruptly the insect-sounds had disappeared. There were no small things rustling in the undergrowth. Jashad signaled for the column to halt. “Listen,” he said to one of the men standing close by. “Something’ s coming this way . . .”

  The silence was broken by the distant thrash of branches and the barely audible whomp of heavy footfalls. Something was closing in on their position, and it moved boldly, without fear of detection.

  “Keep moving!” cried Jashad, as he tried to locate the source of the intruding sounds. It seemed to be approaching the rear flank of the column, but he could not see very far within the lush green weave of the forest. “Double-time!”

  The commandos slipped into a half-jog, bobbing and weaving, through a makeshift path. Suddenly a ravenous scream cut through tire humid air like a blade. Turning, Jashad and his men were horrified to see a beast emerge from the tapestry of fronds and broad leaves not ten meters from the men at the rear of the column. It was at least six meters tall, boldly contrasted to the forest by its tan hide, accented by light yellow stripings. Thick hindlegs moved like giant pistons as it surged forward. Its huge head dropped low; its great green eyes and grinning jaw were riveted upon the commandos at the end of the column. Jashad did not recognize the Gorgosaurus for what is was, nor did he care. Before he could shout any commands, the column had broken ranks and scattered into the forest.