by Ken Pence
Oshira gulped and stammered. "I'm...I'm... " he said in English, before switching to Trade. "I wish to talk with the captain."
The Ullumff grunted without taking his eyes or his weapon off Oshira. Another Ullumff came up and grunted something at the other and the weapon was lowered and the first one, stepped back out of sight.
"Which one are you? What do you want?" said the second Ullumff.
Oshira was affronted that these aliens could not distinguish his cultured good looks from the rest of the young station crew. "Captain. I wish to continue the negotiations."
The Ullumff snorted and Oshira could smell the cinnamon smell. He did not realize this Ullumff was getting angry. "The captain left orders that he not be disturbed. I am the Navigator. Which one are you?"
Oshira was taken aback that he could have been wrong. "My name is Oshira. I wish to discuss the gift Williams gave your captain."
"It was an immense gift and the captain is trying to decide what he must give you back. Even his family dung could not repay what transpired."
Oshira decided that this navigator was using sarcasm at his expense. "I wish to start negotiations with the captain."
The navigator heard a tone and another crewmember said something to him. He suddenly reached out, grabbed Oshira by the collar, and jerked him off his feet and through the hatch which slammed shut behind him.
***
Colonel Kyger was in the control room with Ling and several duty officers when the ready team got to the Ullumff ship airlock area. They had just gotten Oshira in sight next to the hatch when they saw him jerked through the door of the ship.
The console next to Brad lit up and the station shook as the depressurization alarm went off.
"We just saw Oshira jerked through the hatch of the Ullumff ship," reported the team from near the airlock.
"Are the Ullumff attacking?" Ling asked as the station shook again from pressurization changes.
"I don't think so. Damn. We lost of our communications uplink. Our stressed space field snapped on but whoever is attacking is using a laser with a hell of a punch. Must be... " he was interrupted again when the lighting went out and the emergency lighting kicked in. "Whoever is doing this knows the layout of this place backwards and forwards. I'll bet Oshira is in this up to his neck. Well. Whoever laid this out is probably from Earth and needs a proper welcome. I doubt they'll want to raze this to the crust," Brad said as he directed his people to set up ambushes and set up alternate incident command centers. "If they're not Ullumff...burn them. Team Three -- try to get to November Four Delta."
Colonel Kyger unlocked the arms locker in the back of the command center and handed out weapons as he explained. "Luckily we were all suited or that attack would have killed most of us. We need to get to a ship before we're overrun. They could wait us out in these suits and it would be over in a couple of days at most but I don't think they'll wait that long and I certainly don't intend to."
"How will we fight them off here and what about the Ullumff?" Ling asked.
"We are leaving and those left will cut them apart. They have to hit them in one coordinated attack or they stand off and burn holes in any place they can't control. I don't have any standing defenses other than some new small arms with the ground teams. All, our defense is tied up in the few ships we have and I can't contact any of them to warn them. This shows a lot of our weaknesses."
"Hi, handsome," said a figure over the tact frequency as a figure flew into the room.
"Fran! I'm very happy to see you," Brad said.
"It was a little breezy in a couple of the corridors or I would have been here sooner," she said as she laid a hand on his chest for just a moment.
It was obvious from the way his face stayed on her for that second that they cared about each other. He then moved away and keyed his mike. "We're out at the next hit and aimed a molecular disruptor at the north bulkhead. Another lesser shock ran through the complex and he fired at the wall and made a two meter diameter hole. "We move together fast due north of here about one hundred and thirty klicks into the twilight region we have another ship hidden for emergencies. It isn't as heavily armed but it has communications gear. It's at coordinate November Four Delta three. Everyone... Up for a little flight? Keep your fields set at about zero point five. The pressors won't move us as fast in this gravity and we won't stand out as readily in a lighter field even if they have decent field detection gear.
The lunar outpost refugees of the attack moved low across the surface until they came to a low mountain range. It had taken an hour to move to the remote complex since they had had to travel low and slow in an indirect route. They hoped to avoid detection in the confusion of the attack.
General Alexander was very pleased even though the alien ship had powered up and disappeared. The power supplies and communications equipment had been amputated quickly. He reasoned any loss of life was in the interest of the Earth and a small price to pay. He knew he'd set this up well. He waited nearby and then directed laser fire to several possible ground station strongholds. An hour later, he was on the ground and his strike troops were moving. Lack of resistance didn't bother him a bit since there had been no warning. He hoped Oshira had been regrettably lost also in the unprovoked attack by the 'alien ship'. Lucky his troops were on hand to run them off and take control of the station. The winners get to write the history books, he thought. He smiled and ordered the strike teams to enter.
"They are entering the station. Looks like Earth troops all right but don't know whom they represent yet. Here we are folks. Easy now," Brad said over their Mem-Dexs as they approached a shadowed crater. There was a small entrance and the ship was deep inside a cavernous room of rock.
"Wow," somebody said.
"Double wow," said Fran. "How did you make this here?"
Brad said, "These molecular disrupters let you excavate a room this size in a few hours. The only problem is the release of hydrogen gas when you use those things. It can get twitchy in a small space or if the release of the gas moves big clouds of dust around. I know from experience. The ship was just flown in a couple of weeks ago. Everyone in now and let's get the communications gear fired up first. Ling. Would you handle that? This is one of the later prototypes of our main ships."
Ling nodded and began calling the ship designations that Brad sent her from his Mem-Dex. Three ships were a couple hours away and it would be another four hours before the two Mars ships could make it. All available would be coordinated for a strike in two hours. The station crew was warned to initiate action ten minutes before that to distract the attackers from the approaching ships.
"Take this ship up a hundred kilometers where we can scan and then we'll plan from there."
The ship raced away out and up from the lunar surface. The detectors were turned on as the field around the ship was damped.
"Colonel," said a tech. "Looks like two ships near the station. May be the Ullumff ship near the asteroid belt. Yep. Different signature. Our other three ships are about to get en route… too soon for Mars to respond. Colonel. Look here," he pointed to the display. "Here's the Enclosure where our ships were built and here in New Mexico is another one. Not so big."
"Let our people on Earth get a full update and we'll settle that score later. Put me in touch with Andrew and the other station teams when we get in range. Let's go down almost to the lunar surface and then move closer. Can you hug the contour without splitting us open and cut back on the microwave navigation signature so we won't set them off as we get closer."
"Brad...Colonel. I don't think I can do anything about the microwave. It's either on or off on this model and I don't think I could do anything effective in less than two hours. We can pinpoint our location and point of travel now and then cut it off when we would get anywhere near the station. That might work," Susan said.
"Guess it will have too. Figure out as best you can how close we can get without showing up on their receivers. Fran," he turned to her. "I..."
"I'll understudy the Sarge over there at the field controls. I've worked with those enough I might even be useful." Fran gave Brad a wink and headed over to the field control station.
Susan patted him understandingly on the arm and said, "She'll be fine."
Brad hoped Susan was right but haste did not often produce the best outcomes.
"We can probably get within fifty kilometers before we'd be detectable... that's if they stay close to the surface. Further we go up -- further away they can spot us. We can cover the last fifty kilometers with one short, high-speed hop for altitude and then a short burst to the station. Where do you want to go at the station?"
"Let's go straight to the rear of the closest ship. We can't contact our people at the station without giving away our position and they wouldn't be able to answer without giving away their position. How are we doing on time? Ling. You okay on that laser turret?"
"Fifty minutes 'til the station crew are supposed to start their attacks," Susan said.
"I'm set up. This setup looks fine. It's not half the power of what we got hit with though," Ling said.
"Let's start that move. Everyone up for it?" he asked.
They all gave him a ‘thumbs up’ and then set about with grim determination.
General Alexander had had his first reports and they left him ill at ease. No bodies. Why were there no bodies? Better put up a lookout. He called the second ship and ordered it up ten klicks act as an overwatch. He didn't want to be surprised again. His teams were doing a room to room search and hadn't...
"Papa, we've run into... " the transmission from one of his assault teams was cut off.
This was something the General understood. "Find out where the resistance is coming from and then we'll clean it out with the ships’ weapons," he said to all teams. "Do not engage except as necessary. Just pinpoint the resistance." Alexander turned to his communications officer. "Where'd that transmission come from?"
"Not sure which of the three teams. Sounded like Jennings; which would be Team Three. They were supposed to be checking the main power plant we hit. I can't raise them."
"Keep trying, Kingfisher. Swing toward the power plant and assist Falcon. They have engaged hostiles. Just pinpoint them for us," he said as Team Two acknowledged. Don't want to destroy the whole station… too hard to rebuild.
Andrew didn't like infantry work with modern weapons. The station crew had set up their ambushes and discussed if the command group had made it to safety. He hoped Susan was with them. He couldn't keep from thinking...hoping that was the case. They had to base all their plans on a few sentences from Brad before he got out of radio range. It had worked out well so far but he wasn't looking forward to what those ship mounted lasers would do...they certainly totaled the power plants, burning deep into the lunar surface.
They had gotten indications on their infrared sensors and then a team of soldiers had come into view. Andrew's team let them get most of the way down the corridor and then used the one molecular disruptor they had. The soldiers didn't have any personal fields on. The disruptor vaporized large sections of their bodies and viscera from their sudden depressurization had covered the faceplates of all who weren't initially hit. The rest died instants later and never got off a shot.
Andrew and the rest of his team moved toward the cafeteria in an attempt to come in behind whomever they would send to reinforce the destroyed assault team. Andrew didn't want to be where the laser crews above could find them.
"Papa...Kingfisher. Papa...Kingfisher. We located Falcon. No survivors sir. Looks like those reports of a weapon that dissolves matter are true. Over."
"Kingfisher," General Alexander was getting angry. He'd be shorthanded when he restarted negotiations with the aliens. Aliens would deal with the disciplined military better than any intellectual elite. Earth had to be protected by someone with vision. "You have personal fields that are supposed to completely protect you from those...use them man. Over."
"But..."
"Papa... Out," Alexander pounded the arm of his command chair with his fist. He needed to pinpoint the resistance fast so he could renegotiate with the aliens himself.
"Sir, the cover ship has picked up a return about sixty klicks toward the terminator and close to the surface. Moving this way too fast to be a surface transport. Pretty slow for a ship," said the comm officer.
"Take us up with the cover ship and go dark. Cut off the field and standby with laser turrets."
Fran asked the sergeant what those blips were on the field display.
"That must be one of the ships we were going to meet. Just coming into view over the horizon. Colonel. One of their ships is in a high cover position."
"Stop us here. Well so much for surprise. We can only assume they've seen us. What's their position?"
"They're about 10 klicks off the surface. Looks like the other one is joining them. Oops. Lost it. Only see one of them now sir," said the sergeant at the field control console.
"Susan, let our other three ships know what is up. Can they get here any sooner?" Brad asked.
"They'll try, " Susan said after a few seconds waiting for her signals to return.
"Let's hope they sit tight for a few minutes. Might be a good idea for us to put some random movements into our flight. I don't want to take a hit," Brad said and the sergeant started to vary their flight plan.
Thought they'd take the bait, thought General Alexander. Surely, they see my first ship. Why aren't they attacking? Maybe they don't like the odds. Philips did a good job building our own enclosure and these lasers. Let's go ahead and use them. They aren't too far away to hit and we can both fire to double the probability of a hit. "Battle stations. Prepare to fire on my command. An extra week of leave for the crew that destroys that ship. Let's synchronize this...ready, ready, ready, ready, ready, ready, ready, aim fire."
Four lances of coherent light leaped from the two ships. One hit the midsection of Brad's small ship.
Susan was slammed against the console and felt a burning heat across her back, even through the suit. The sergeant at the field controls took the brunt of the hit and his colloidal explosion sprayed the cabin with his organic matter that wasn’t vaporized. Fran was knocked against the bulkhead and Brad was slammed backward as the main cabin depressurized. The lights went off and the cut off of the field along with the rapid loss of atmosphere on the upper side of the ship had forced it toward the lunar surface.
Ling and Fran were the first ones to recover in the darkness and they switched on their suit lights. They looked around.
"Can you patch that hole in the wall?" Fran asked and pointed where the bulkhead had been breached.
"Yep, " she answered and she pushed off the console, floated over to a locker and began pulling out rolls of fiberply and sealant.
Fran turned to where the sergeant had been sitting just moments before and just stared. She shook her head and then bent over the console whose base was melted by the remnants of the laser pulse. She could see where a control module had been damaged. The base looked intact and she had remembered the Sarge... she paused. She had remembered him telling her that spares for this whole section were…where? Over there… Mustn't think about the man...just the mission... It was hard to focus with the tears inside her helmet.
Need to know what I'm looking for first. She reached to pull out the damaged module but couldn't get purchase enough to pull it out. She put a foot on either side of the module and grabbed it as well she could with her gloved hands and counted to three. On three, she jerked up and back as hard as she could. There was a moment of hesitation and then the module popped out and she went flying backward across the room. Without thought, she slapped the control that turned on her suit field and stopped dead when the field touched the opposite bulkhead. She floated there for a few seconds and then used her pressor to move to the locker with the spares. The pressor was fine for outside but had too gross a control mechanism for inside work. She soon turned it off.
She lifted Brad off the floor, glided him into the control chair and strapped him in. When Ling was finished, Fran went over to the field console and turned on the backup power supply, which should have come on automatically, she thought. Lights came on in the cabin and with only a few seconds hesitation; Fran punched the button she thought would turn on the ship's stressed space field.
The stressed space field switched on a full two seconds before the ship would have impacted on the lunar surface, but Fran did not know any of that. She did not know that if she had hesitated another few seconds their ship would have been scattered across the lunar surface.
Brad, Susan and the other crewman were still unconscious but Fran went over to check over her man. Brad started to come to but groaned miserably and put his hands up to his helmet.
"Oh-oh. How bad are we hit? Oh, my eyes are watering like hell. I can't see anything. Is anyone hurt?" he asked.
"The sergeant is dead. Susan and the other crewman are unconscious. Ling and I are fine. Ling patched the wall. I fixed the field console. I don't know where we are but we're out of this ballgame," Fran said.
"We need to find out where we are and get word to those other ships."
"Ling," Fran nodded to her friend who had overheard and moved to the comm console. "Okay. She's gonna’ try to get them. What do you want her to say?"
"Ling, tell them our situation and tell them how powerful those lasers were. Tell them that there may be one ship blacked out but there are two ships; two, not one. One ship may have their field down so sweep the area with the disrupters," Brad said, obviously in a lot of pain from the way he grabbed the sides of the chair. "Put the sergeant's body aft."