by Ken Pence
"Okay, Brad. You take it easy. It will all work out," Fran said.
Colonel Brad Kyger wasn't so sure. He hoped the ships above would disregard them so they could get back to the station. He hoped the station crew were not all killed and he hoped the three approaching ships would not get killed outright. He didn't want Fran to die this way. She was such a good person and made things grow. He realized he loved her deeply but had never told her.
"General, the ship we hit seems to have impacted on the lunar surface and I have another ship approaching fast but it's too far away to be effective."
"It's okay, son. Calm down. We'll swat it down too," Alexander said. "Tell them to hold their fire 'til the last minute. Seems we have the range on it anyway. It doesn't know we're here remember."
"General, it's not one ship. It's three and they've spilt up and are coming from slightly different headings. My returns are not fast enough to keep up with their changes."
"Guess where they're going to be and fire there. We have plenty of power," Alexander said.
The laser pulses from the three Earth regulatory force ships targeted the first of Alexander's ships. All were direct hits. The intensity was not as great as Alexander's but one ship exploded in a very quiet flash of gas and metal. The other ship bugged out fast toward Earth. They weren’t about to be a sitting duck for three ships and didn’t have the surprise factor any longer.
"Colonel Kyger...Thor," The Regulatory Force ship called.
"Go ahead," answered Brad who had Fran help him key his link.
"Sir, one of their ships was destroyed and the other is heading back to Earth. What do you want us to do?"
"He appears to be heading for that second enclosure we found in New Mexico. Take two of your ships and proceed there as fast as possible. Destroy that ship and then knock out the enclosure power plant. Use the disrupters over anything that looks like a ship or would help build a ship... all the hangars, all the labs, all heavy equipment," Brad said gravely.
"But sir...don't we need higher authority. They'll be a lot of people down there," questioned the officer.
"We were in the midst of trade with an alien vessel. We, are a signatory of an Exploration Service agreement; which states that interference with trade can result in destruction of that member's planet. We are the ONLY ones delegated to uphold that agreement. We do not have time for a guerrilla war. We don’t have time to get decisions from people nearly a quarter of a million miles away. We are STILL fighting off an assault at our lunar base. Send one ship and meet us just north of the lunar station," Colonel Kyger said.
"Right away sir," said the officer in a subdued tone.
Andrew didn't like this cat and mouse game. He didn't like spreading people around hallways. They had moved around the cafeteria in an attempt to move in behind any backup team. It helped to be familiar with this rabbit warren, this maze of construction that served as the station.
They were almost to the point where they wished to set up another ambush when a spacesuited soldier came into view. He fired first and the facemask of the man next to Andrew was punctured. The decompression blew it out. Andrew fired with the molecular disruptor and parts of the soldier who had shot disappeared and the explosive decompression splattered what was left around the corridor. Andrew ran forward firing the disruptor but the other soldiers had been warned and turned on their suit stressed space fields. They were not hurt but had no traction and just floated there as others of Andrew's team ran up with laser weapons. One of Andrew's team fired a low level beam into the leg of one and then a higher energy blast into the floor. All the soldiers surrendered their weapons. Their fields would have protected them from the molecular disruptor but not the lasers. Their comm links had been severed for whatever reason and they did not want to waste their lives.
The third assault team fought at the other end of the station and killed four techs before they were killed. The station bulkheads were vaporized in several places where the disruptor was directed. All of the third assault team were killed.
"Andrew, this is Brad. Hold out a bit longer and we'll figure where best to deploy backup." The comm link on their Mem-dex had been quiet for two hours -- up 'til now.
"We got it stabilized here. Captured six of a seven-man team. Rest of the assault teams are dead. Station took some more hits but mainly bulkheads -- fixable. Mayerchak is dead and we lost," he was ashamed he couldn't remember the names of the other four techs," ...we lost four others. We'll secure the prisoners and then have them help us patch these walls."
"Good idea. Put them in an area that has been patched afterward without their suits. They'll get the idea. We'll dock in a few minutes and try to get the power plants back on line. We have a couple of auxiliaries we can cobble together. We need those communications almost as bad as we need to get out of these suits. We'll brief you when we get there," Brad signed off.
General Alexander saw the approaching ships break apart to attack from different vectors. This wasn't just power on and glide toward your opponent in a nice clean orbit. This was we are coming to do battle and no negotiation. He didn't think they'd attack first without talking. The laser blasts from the three attackers destroyed his exposed ship while he waited watching passively. The three Earth Regulatory ships turned toward his ship.
"Full screens and full speed... Get back to base. Warn them that we're coming with hostiles in pursuit."
"General, we're being jammed and the distortion through the field limits our output."
"Try to get away from them. Get some distance so we can get a signal through."
"I'm trying sir but...they just missed sir. It damaged a backup sensor array."
"Let's get a shot at them."
"Sir, we can't fire directly to the rear and we can't turn enough on our evasive maneuvers without presenting too much of a target."
"That's exactly why they won't expect it. Do it."
The navigator, gunners and the pilot looked at each other. The ship swung hard to starboard in a move impossible to an inertia-bound craft. Its powerful laser cut through the ether at one of the three pursuing craft and hit one a glancing blow just as two pursuers fired. Their return beams, though not as powerful, hit the General's ship glancing blows on either side, puncturing the hull on one side. One of the pursuit craft dropped back while the General's ship sped toward their New Mexico enclosure with two Earth Regulatory ships in pursuit. Now the General had to deal with a dead gunner's mate from one of the laser hits.
"Think we can stop them before they reach their Enclosure in New Mexico?" said the Earth Regulatory Force Captain to the ensign beside him.
"I doubt it, Captain. They'll make it but it will be a few seconds until they drop the field to let them enter -- if they are able to detect anything outside the field. You remember how we were in the early stages."
The Captain remembered because he had spent a couple of years in relative time under THE Enclosure before the alien, Rett, had figured out a way to make stepped entrances. His wife had been killed in one of the early gate failures. Yes. He remembered well how blind you were to the outside when you were in an early version stressed space field. "Let's drop it for them. Do our lasers have enough power in atmosphere?"
"The free electron laser lets us tune the frequencies. Ought to be able to fire them up... It will take a lot of hits because the beam heats up the area around the point of impact. It's harder to disburse the heat in space where you only have radiation. We'll have to deal with convection from the atmosphere too. Good thing is that targets on the ground aren't as mobile."
"Okay, just a minute or two now. Keep firing at the ship if it won't degrade the lasers. I don't want us to take any hits without giving more. It is more blessed to give than to receive."
The crew grinned at the words and anxiously waited as the laser groaned out a shot every few seconds.
"General, we can't enter unless they drop the stressed space field."
"I show that it should be down by my tim
e," said the General Alexander.
"Time distortion... " replied the navigator. "I can't be sure when it's due to be shut off."
"Assume it is down. I need volunteers to fly the ship and man the last turret while the others debark," General Alexander said. Three men stepped forward. "I knew I could count on you, " he said.
"Okay, Captain. They are headed to the New Mexico Enclosure but it's still up, " said the navigator who was intently watching his display. "They're landing beside it. Have them visually in a few...here they are," he said as the display lurched and wavered until the stabilization cut in. "They're opening the port."
"Try to take out the ship. Fire at will. Use disrupters on the area around the stressed space field. The ship will probably try to take off a once. Now's your chance, guys."
The lasers groaned and the hum of the disrupters was non-stop.
"Their ship's hit sir but just crippled. They still could have some fight left... " the navigator said at the instant the visual image blacked out and the sound like an arc welder hit the starboard sensor array.
"Follow the ship chief and let's finish the job before they leave atmosphere," said the captain.
"Just a lucky shot, sir. There. Wow! Very pyrotechnic. That raider is history. The Hawk reports they are fine and restarting their stressed space field."
"Very good, chief. Let's go finish the job," said the captain grimly.
Alexander hurried down the ramp, feigning confidence he didn't feel. He had just debarked his ship as a laser hit behind him knocked him down with a blast of heated air. His ship responded with the crack of a responding discharge. His people couldn't pass through the stressed space field yet so they crouched on both sides of the entrance ramp. Suddenly there was a displacement in the air near him and the men on the other side of the ramp and a good two feet of soil dissolved. Rarely had Alexander felt so helpless. A brilliant flash followed by a distant "ca-rumpp" signaled the demise of his last active ship. He crouched in abject horror. He cursed the stressed space field that remained active beside him. Suddenly he felt wind from his back as the stressed space field vanished. He recovered before his men and ran toward the interior shouting orders.
"Captain, the stressed space shield around their enclosure has just switched off. Don't know if they detected us or not," explained the ensign at the field control.
"Are we close enough with the molecular disruptor?" asked the captain.
"Not in atmosphere, Captain," he replied.
"Bring us closer. Locate their power plants and the buildings that might produce other ships. They probably have some defensive capability."
The Thor and the Condor rapidly moved to twenty thousand meters over the complex and began to target buildings with visible transmission lines and communications equipment. The lasers punched down through the atmosphere and began to slam into buildings in the complex. Anti-aircraft missiles leaped forth in the knee-jerk military response to explode harmlessly against the shield of the ships. Suddenly the stressed space field on the ground was reinstated; obviously because Alexander had ordered it. The lasers continued the lance downward through the field. A lone laser began firing upward, out through the field. Evidently someone had enough presence of mind and had one that was ready to put into a ship and gotten it out and activated. They were firing blind up where the ships had been and didn't have sensors that worked through the field. The field generators on the ground were finally targeted and the field dropped noiselessly.
The ground laser station could detect 'something up there' and fired seconds after the field dropped. The Condor was hulled but it didn't explode. It took a long time for it to impact on the ground.
Captain Ramierez aboard the Thor had his conversation with the Condor cut off in mid-sentence. He watched it plummet for precious seconds. "Molecular disrupters! Quickly! Evasive maneuvers!" he shouted.
The ground laser fired a second time but they were not so lucky this time. They did not get a third chance. The disrupters tore a spiraling pattern through the complex and buildings vanished below their foundations. Fires from the previous laser strikes ignited the suddenly released hydrogen and turned the former complex into a firestorm that cremated personnel before they were turned into free hydrogen by the disruptor. The only evidence that there had ever been a complex was the scorched sand at the end of several paved roads. The area looked like a napalm bombing range in the desert.
Captain Ramierez contacted Kyger and informed him that the base had been destroyed but they had lost the Condor and Falcon was damaged. There was silence for a long moment from the moon and then Ramierez received orders to ferry materials from the Arizona Enclosure and coordinate defense of the lunar station after the two ships on Mars standby had been recalled. All the materials were on hand when the Thor arrived at the Arizona Enclosure. Soon the Thor and two other ships were loaded and headed rapidly to the lunar base.
The lunar base was hulled in several areas but the auxiliary power plant supplied enough power to re-establish the stressed space field with a small stepped sally port and yet provide power to the complex. Only the area designed for off world visitors was relatively airtight, but it did give personnel a place to get out of their suits when they were not on the 12-hour relative repair shifts.
Brad had the stressed space field set at a relative time rate of thirty so thirty hours would pass in the field for every one hour of time that passed outside the field. Andrew came to Brad in his dimly lit office when the repairs were 95 per cent complete.
"Brad, we're done here. We can stand down the crews a bit and get back on some type of regular schedule. Exhausted people are not the finest craftsmen," Andrew said.
"We still have that 'hit' out there in the asteroid belt. I haven't figured out how to persuade them to come back here. Have you? Were all dressed up and nowhere to dance."
"That's nowhere to go. You are tired. They have a strong economic interest to come back...or they did before Oshira got to them," Andrew said.
"Yeah. What about Oshira?" Brad asked as he put his feet up on his desk and poured himself a tumbler of Jack Black. "I think we ought to let them keep him but who knows what he has said and done in the -- three days. Has it only been three days since all this came down? It seems like a lifetime. So many died. So many good men…Shit... That goddamn Alexander!" Brad stopped his tirade and motioned to Andrew if he wanted a drink too.
Andrew waved it off and shook his head. "Who isn't with us any more I note."
"What? Oh yeah. And what about the response from the Council -- 'Take whatever measures to ensure treaty and defend against pirates' -- friggin' pirates no less. Is that what Alexander was to them; a pirate? We killed 3,218 people if those reports were correct. Not pirates...people."
"We lost some good people too. The Council is just covering his mistake and saving our asses at the same time. How are the eyes?" Andrew asked quietly.
"They're a lot better. You know they'd be singing his praises if he had taken over this station though...don't you?"
"Yep," Andrew said as he rubbed the back of his neck. "I think I'll take you up on that drink."
Brad leaned over and poured him a tumbler and they raised glasses and sipped in silence for several minutes.
"How's Fran? She takes this like it happens every day. She's great. I hear Susan's over her concussion. What's she say about all this?" Brad asked.
Andrew tilted his head down and looked a little sideways and grinned as he swallowed too much of a sip. "She says...(cough)...shoo... she says that we ought to go out there and ask if they intend to trade with us or what."
"Do what?"
"Yep," Andrew said. "She thinks we ought to go out there and act like none of this shit ever happened. Ask them why they took our honored guest, Mister Oshira. "
"I'll be damned," Brad said and took a sip. He raised his glass a bit and grinned at Andrew. "Here's to Susan."
"I'll drink to that," Andrew said.
UmBllatt, Captain of the Ul
lumff Trader was getting very tired of the protestations of this 'raymondoshira' being. It had been a little over an Ullumff day or so since they had left. It is always prudent to leave when there might be trouble. Too bad his sensors could tell little from this range. He had considered staying away another week or two to 'sweeten' the deal but he didn't know if he could stand this 'raymondoshira' much longer. Imagine. This little being had defecated in one of their sleeping areas, urinated on some artwork and complained about the food. It was unimaginable. Wonder if they would miss him if we just returned without him. Of course...they would complain and try to insist on his importance and try to trample us for more trade goods. I suppose it wouldn't be in the best interest of the mission. Pity.
Captain UmBllatt was shaken out of his reverie when a crewman lightly grunted for attention.
"What?"
"A small ship is approaching," said the crewman.
"Only one?" he asked.
"Yes, Captain. I'm receiving a message."
"Well! Relay it to me. Have the come to beg us to come back...if so, let's just sit here a while and let them look for grazing," said the Captain very proud of his analysis. They'll beg us to come back and we can get more trade concessions because of this trouble at their quarantine station.
The crewman grunted almost inaudibly.
The Captain swung his oculars around to gaze at the crewman in a very unfavorable light.
"Captain, they said for us to trade or apply for visa extensions. They said we have several 'days' left on our trading visas and we knew where to find them if we wanted to return. They also said something I do not understand."
“What is that?” The Captain inquired.
“What does do you want to fish or cut bait mean?”