11
LUNAR CRASHLike two shimmering locusts they crested the lunar horizon in tandem and began to lose height. Identical grey twins the two ships were roughly oblong with snub-noses and sharp dorsal fins, both had their missile ports open for instant use and both were scanning the terrain ahead with high-definition particle beams as they searched and hoped for good news.
Aboard Recon Probe 1, Alec Freeman sat stiffly in the pilot seat with white knuckles and dark eyes. He was hardly even aware when Probe 2 banked and moved away to the south to begin a separate search vector, young Ryan at the helm a good man in a crisis and this certainly qualified.
Cutting speed Alec put his craft in hover mode and activated the main view screen on it six blackened husks could be seen polluting the lunar landscape. They formed a pattern of the colony that had been ripped apart by weapons of frightening intensity. Shaking his head slowly Alec turned to his co-pilot and waited for her to speak, when she didn't he did.
"What we feared isn't it?"
There was still no response from the cool blond, as if she was too much in shock to offer an opinion. "No survivors by the look of it," he went on. "I mean who could survive a holocaust like that?"
Hitting video record he spoke into a collar microphone, "Moon base has been completely destroyed not a single structure remains, and there are no signs of any personnel."
At last Colonel Lake spoke and it was with a distant voice, "In another week I'd have been starting my shift, I could have been there when this happened."
"Yes but you weren't," Freeman said with as much reassurance as he could muster. "That's the important thing."
She threw him a wild look and he knew what she was thinking, what about Paul, Gay and the rest?
"Maybe someone got out," he offered.
"How Alec, and where would they go? This is the moon not some remote part of earth – no air, no water, nowhere to hide."
He broke off eye contact knowing all that, to escape her acid judgement he thumbed inter-ship. "This is Probe 1 to Probe 2, anything Ryan?"
There was an unpleasant pause before the youngster responded, "Nothing sir that signal we picked up earlier must have been a ghost, an echo."
Virginia Lake hissed, "It sounded genuine to me."
Not arguing, as he knew there was no point Freeman said, "Keep scanning Ryan and do a thorough sweep, no stone unturned okay?"
"Understood sir. I'm approaching Larson's gully now the peripheral installations have been totally destroyed." In other words this was probably a waste of time, but the kid didn't say that because none of them wanted to think it.
"Where are the aliens?" Lake enquired.
"Why hang around?" Alec responded.
"Because they knew we'd pay a visit," the blond senior officer shot back.
"Never look a gift horse in the mouth, they aren't her and that suits me just fine. It would have taken a special kind of UFO to do this damage clearly alien technology has taken a leap forward. I've no desire to bump into one of their new ships."
Taking them out of hover mode he circled over the ruins and dropped another few meters, obviously none of the interceptors had survived either and that was worrying. He noted the smashed and melted remains of rocket launchers – they hadn't done much good either.
"Where did the UFOs come from?" Virginia was ashen, "Why didn't SID pick them up?"
Having no answers Freeman made sure he filmed every last gruesome detail, he was halfway through this when Ryan returned.
"I've got it, the distress signal it's back online again weaker than before but definitely there."
Hope blossomed like a rare orchid in Alec's chest, maybe there was a god after all. "Triangulate," he ordered. "Zero in on that broadcast, we'll join you as soon as we're finished here."
Excerpt from the private journal of Gay Ellis.
Almost a week has past since Colonel Foster and myself reached the emergency survival bunker, and things are looking pretty grim. Instead of three weeks rations we found enough for five days, and most of the water was irradiated. There was a distress beacon but it hadn't been properly maintained, even working flat out it took the two of us almost five days to get it up and running, even then the signal strength was only 60 of what it should have been – too weak to reach SHADO HQ in other words so if they don't send help…No I mustn't think like that. Paul is right we have to stay positive.
I feel very weak now from lack of food and water. Paul has been very gallant and allowed me the lion's share of the rations, even so the end is in sight. We've got 48 hours tops. I decided to keep this journal to record my personal and professional observations. The electronic log doesn't work – big surprise there! Why wasn't this bunker better maintained? Probably because we never thought we'd need it, we were overconfident in our belief that the aliens couldn't touch us.
I'd like to record personal commendations to all those who worked under me, their lives were an inspiration and they died doing what they believed in, what we all believe in, the protection of mother earth from hostile invaders. Since the attack on the base we haven't seen anything of the aliens, they appear to have lost interest in the moon. Paul thinks we should remain vigilant just in case, but it occurs to me – hang on he's coming back and shouting something.
"There's someone outside Gay." Foster's face was bright with fear and excitement through the visor of his spacesuit. The inner core of the bunker had life support but to preserve the dwindling stock of power they left it off during the lunar day. Wearing her own suit Gay opened hatch 3 to let Paul in, but he waved her to come out. "I saw movement, the flash of sun off metal."
"Who are they?" Gay was almost hoarse with neediness after all this time without hope.
"I can't tell, I think there are three of them climbing down into the gully from the east."
Gay paused – east was the dark side of the moon why would a rescue team come from there? She picked up a pair of long range, computer enhanced binoculars as well as a gun and joined him just inside the cave mouth that was the entrance to the bunker. Raising the binoculars to her visor she scanned outside, "I can't see anything Paul."
"Further to the left about a kilometre and bit."
Nothing, not a single – no wait there it was movement a flash. She made out a blurred figure reaching the floor of the gully it looked up at two other figures descending carefully. Hitting 'zoom', she waited to see the cream and grey livery of SHADO astronauts. Come on she thought let this be a rescue mission!
But the colour scheme was crimson and chrome with breathing tanks on the chest not the back, the visors being dark green and the guns streamlined ending in dark bulbs of faceted crystal. Her heart sank it was like the final nail in their coffins. Turning to Paul she saw the dismay in his eyes to, as he slumped back against the rock face.
"Why now?" He remarked, "And how did they find us?"
Wasn't it obvious, the distress beacon designed to attract friends could also invite death?
"Three of them and two of us," Gay was calculating odds when it came to a fight. "But we have the advantage of cover plus we've seen them first."
Foster was too experienced a soldier to believe it would be a fair fight, he hoisted his blaster it had a range of two hundred meters out here on the lunar surface, what kind of range did the aliens have?
"There are three that we can see," he pointed out the flaw in her logic.
"Positive thinking Paul, isn't that what you've been drumming into me?"
Smiling despite himself he clicked his weapon to maximum yield, "Yes you're right of course we have to believe we've got a chance."
"How do you want to play this?"
He squinted at the approaching figures. "We do nothing until we have to, why advertise our presence?"
"We don't have much ammunition," she pointed out.
"Then what we use has to count, three hits no misses."
Gay nodded grimly an ambush it was then, funny she'd never pictured herself as a bushwacker when she'd applied for this job but that was how it had turned out.
The trio of aliens remained in a tight bunch making themselves easy targets this had to mean they didn't really know if there were any human survivors. We've got a chance Gay thought, a fighting chance.
She believed that right up until the lead alien stopped walking, levelled his laser and fired from a distance of three hundred meters.
The cave rocked violently as the wall outside exploded into a billion red sparks. Cracks appeared all around Gay and debris fell as fist-sized chunks, raining down on the two humans who huddled together under the flimsiest of canopies waiting for the quake to subside. When it did the alien lowered his gun and looked at his companions, one of them made a gesture that she didn't understand until the trio fanned out.
"They can hit us but we can't hit them," she cried. "We must get back inside the core."
"How safe do you think we'll be in there?" Foster demanded. It was a moot point, as the weapons held by the aliens could probably cut through metal as easily as granite.
"We can't stay here Paul, one more shot and the roof will cave in."
"Then let's get outside," he said astonishingly.
"But we'll be exposed to their fire."
"Gay we have to get closer to them otherwise this won't be a fight it'll be a slaughter."
Hesitating for only seconds she nodded as this practicality, "Who goes first?"
"Isn't it always the ladies?" Foster replied with a dry sense of humour.
Then the alien sharp shooter took aim once more and gallantry went out of the window, "Together!" Foster screamed and two spacesuits exploded from the cave mouth one second before a laser blast created an avalanche of crushing rock. Paul went left and sank down behind an L-shaped boulder, Gay went right and rested her gun on a ledge of dark rock. Neither fired they didn't have the range yet. Not assuming any cover the aliens kept advancing in a skirmish line, only one had fired so far but his gun was so powerful that no others were needed. Please thought Gay, don't let them send a UFO or we're really sunk.
"Paul?"
"I see them, try to work your way around to the right you've got more natural cover than me."
As this was a sound plan she began to move, hopping from rock to rock as smoothly as her suit and the lack of gravity would allow. As fit as an athlete she felt a nagging ache in her stomach from lack of food and hoped this was one fight that didn't drag itself out. She was lucky in that the aliens didn't see her and by the time she reached a good vantage point she was to the right of them and much closer. She waited for Paul to get in touch, the heart thudding in her chest and her mouth dryer than the lunar dust.
All her friends had died out here on this bleak rock she owed them some measure of revenge.
"Gay," it was Foster's voice hoarse and tight. She felt a rush of relief to hear it.
"I'm twelve meters to the east of them and have a good line of fire."
"Don't do anything yet, we need to draw them into a cross fire."
"I think I could get at least two of them right now Paul."
"I'm sure you could Gay but take a look to the north about thirty-five degrees up."
She had to shift slightly to see what he meant and a reflection jarred her retinas, something bright was visible at the top of the gully it was large and rounded with faceted sides and a pulsing beacon on top. Oh no she thought, now what are we going to do we're completely boxed in and outgunned?
Jeff Ryan adjusted the reception of his comms unit but no matter what he did he couldn't get the signal back. He thought of telling Freeman but something stayed his hand, it was a bright flash down below and to the north. Adjusting his main viewer he activated its zoom facility and the sinister, beautifully crafted symmetry of a UFO came into view. It was just sat there overlooking a gully and as Ryan let his gaze move from it into the gully he made out tiny ant-sized figures in red – three aliens.
"Alec I have a contact at three eight nine point zero, it's a UFO on the ground and the crew are on the surface."
Freeman's voice came back at once, "Don't do anything Jeff, we'll be with you in seven minutes."
"I could destroy the UFO right now colonel."
"If it's one of those that attacked moon base we need it intact, don't take any action until I say so."
Chewing down his frustration Ryan nodded, he was eager to hit back at the enemy that had so wounded SHADO. Adjusting his viewer to even better definition he focused on the three aliens, what were they doing down in the gully anyway there was nothing there? Then his eye caught sight of something else a different kind of helmet and a cream coloured suit, on the arm was a seven-digit code. Good god it was a moon base spacesuit.
"Colonel there is a human being in the gully, I think somebody survived moon base and the aliens are hunting him."
Virginia Lake spoke next and her voice lacked its usual icy detachment, "Launch an omega probe, set it to a recurring frequency of 3656."
Ryan frowned, "Won't that alert the UFO?"
"If it isn't aware of you now it soon will be, we must link up with any survivors."
"Okay launching probe is three, two, one." A small grey cylinder left the underbelly of Ryan's ship and he watched it buzz away high over the gully, down on the ground the human helmet began to rise.
Gay felt the paralysing sense of dismay bear down on her, I'm going to die out here myself she thought I'll never see my sister or my uncle ever again not even that old grouch Straker. What I wouldn't give to have him chew me out one last time.
Then she both heard and saw it. In her helmet was a recurring four-tone oscillation that she knew only too well. High in the lunar sky was a small but distinct shape that had floated right over the UFO and was losing altitude.
"Paul," she cried. "It's an omega probe, it can only have come from…."
She said no more not when she saw the golden boot to her left about a meter away, her gaze travelled up this to a red trouser leg and beyond that a red suit with a cylinder across the chest. From out of a green liquid-filled visor stared a pair of cold, inhuman eyes. The fourth alien had its gun aimed right at her heart and if it fired now she would surely die. Gay was trapped, she was helpless and it was too late to do anything other than surrender.
She expected the alien to signal to his colleagues but he didn't, instead he waved his gun in a simple gesture and she rose. What now, why didn't he simply shoot her? Another gesture and she let go of her own weapon, letting it float away.
"Paul," she hissed into her helmet. "I've been taken prisoner by a fourth alien."
"What is he doing?"
"I'm not sure, he's waving his gun at me ordering me to move. We're walking away from you and the other aliens I don't understand this. He isn't taking me to his friends."
"I can just about see you but I don't have a clear shot on him. Just a second, he's taking you to the wall of the gully towards the UFO."
Gay blinked, Foster was right she was being frogmarched towards the alien ship. So she wasn't going to be killed out on the lunar surface after all, they had other plans. She was going to be kidnapped like many unfortunates before her, abducted and her organs harvested. How ironic she thought bitterly, they took my father and now they're taking me.
She reached the gully wall, and it was no surprise when her captor gestured for her to climb it. Unhappily she began to do so, if nothing else climbing was easier in zero-g. During her life she had climbed all sorts of things from army obstacle courses to mountains, she was fit and agile because you had to be in SHADO. You went in as an athlete then they took you to new levels. Gay had been one of the earliest recruits Straker had selected her personally after three unpleasantly ill-tempered and very
probing interviews.
I must escape I can't let him take me into the UFO.
Gay knew this even as she climbed ever closer to the thing, glancing up she could see that it was larger, taller and more rounded that the old UFOs with extra buttressing and a triple ring of external fins. Obviously it was one of the new generation of ships probably with a greater crew compliment. The old UFOs carried a crew of two maybe three aliens, but this baby looked like it could carry a baseball team, with plenty of room left over for hapless human prisoners she thought sadly.
It was near to the top of the gully wall that she made her move and she timed it well, drawing on all the years of training in gyms and outdoors with army experts. Shifting all her weight onto her right foot she suddenly kicked back with her left and knocked the alien's gun flying sending him pitching back a good few feet. But he held on by digging his fingers into the clefts between granite, he was a strong one for sure and began to come back. With a savage grunt of primitive fury she kicked at him again, but this time he avoided her foot and clamped a gloved hand on her upper leg digging his thumb into a pressure point.
Paul took aim and with cool deliberation he fired at the nearest of the three aliens. The crimson suit burst open in the gap between helmet and chest and a spume of green bubbles evacuated into the airless vacuum as the helmet voided its cryophilic breathing compound. The suit then collapsed in on itself as if empty then the whole mass sank limply to the lunar dust. It was like blowing a tyre or popping a balloon Paul thought then there was no time to think.
The other two aliens raised their weapons and the darkness was scythed by twin beams of retina scorching brilliance the explosions were left and right of Paul but still punched him back off his feet. It was like being hit by the heavyweight champion of the world and several previous champions all in one go, wind driven out of his lungs Foster floated backwards and upwards carried by his own momentum through a world lacking any gravity.
Luckily he kept hold of his own weapon without that he would have been sunk, spinning right over he saw his opponent retarget their guns. Unless he did something in the next ten seconds he was a dead man, if only he could stop floating.
Ryan's eyes bugged out of his head, the aliens had fired at a human and the human was now spinning out of control. There was no way to remain a passive spectator his fighting Irish blood wouldn't allow it. Targeting the ship's weapons systems he keyed in a localised, low yield impact charge and punched a red button. Three fist-sized nuggets of tangerine plasma spat from the nose of Probe 2 to career down into the gully, fanning out as they did so and giving off a roar like a mini-waterfall. Each plasma gained brilliance as it neared its target, turning from orange to yellow to blinding white fire.
The two aliens on the ground turned away from Foster, spinning one-eighty they gazed up at the approaching weapons, which turned their visors from dark swamp green to soft lagoon lime. Both raised their guns defiantly but it was an empty gesture of futile defiance. The plasma hit moon rock and detonated in a blazing red-yellow corona of igniting particles that split the gully floor right open.
Foster's boots hit a vertical face of rock, he used them to bounce off it and back summersault taking himself down behind a dark crag so that his body fitted seamlessly into a mini-crater and was thus protected from the eye boiling explosion only meters away. The whole gully lit up like Macys at Christmas and the two aliens vanished, their bodies vaporised by a searing heat. Paul couldn't stop the cheer that rose in his throat, boy it felt good to avenge moon base; primitive and blood thirsty but good all the same.
Gay saw the flare below to but it was too far away to harm her eyes or scorch her flesh, in any case she had her own problems. Her left leg was numb and the numbness was spreading to the rest of her as circulation was cut off by the alien's grip. Picking up a chunk of rock the size of a small birthday cake she aimed it at his green visor, planning to smash this and suffocate him.
But at the last moment he let go of her leg and caught her arm, turning his helmet to one side so that the rock just bounced off harmlessly. Even so he was knocked back a little and slightly dazed, this gave her the room she needed to bend both knees into her stomach, roll onto her back, swivel and kick with both feet hitting her opponent square on. He flew back off the lip of the gully not plummeting downwards as he would in gravity but spiralling away in slow motion with arms and legs waving. She permitted herself a triumphant smile, thank goodness for old reflexes and a sadistic judo instructor. She picked herself up, "Paul are you all right?"
No response, had he been caught in the blast?
"Paul, answer me."
She touched her helmet, but the audio feed was still connected. Glancing up she saw Probe 2 hovering on the horizon and Probe 1 was coming up alongside it; the cavalry she thought and about time. "This is Lieutenant Ellis to recon mission, come in please."
A tense wait then a gravely Welsh voice, "Gay – thank God you're alive."
"Colonel Freeman, Colonel Foster is still in the gully but I don't know if he survived that last explosion."
"I'm coming down," Freeman declared. "You stay where you are."
Gay wanted more than anything to go back down into the gully to find Paul, but she knew Alec was being logical. There was an intact UFO not twenty-five meters away and she was going to be one of the first people to enter it by choice. Probe 1 flew high overhead then sank down over the gully she saw a space suited figure descend from the belly of the probe on a winch and knew it would be Freeman. Probe 2 approached her position and the next voice in her helmet belonged to Ryan who said.
"I'm going to land as close to the UFO as I can Lieutenant then I'll be joining you, I think the time has come to get some answers."
Yes she thought it was long past time.
Foster rose slowly out of his crouch, his head was buzzing and his body felt bruised all over but he was alive and that was all that mattered. He could detect a sound high overhead and when he looked up he saw two amazing things, a flying man and a flying alien; and the alien was closer. Gay's opponent had by chance or design almost landed right on top of Paul, reaching the gully face the alien secured a purchase and looked down right at where Foster stood.
Still on his winch Freeman was a couple of minutes away, even so he began to unclip his blaster. Seeing this the alien hurried down the gully face with a nimbleness Paul might have admired in anyone else, as it was he raised his own gun, aimed and..
The weapon gave a lifeless click and he soon saw why, the main power coupling was smashed leaving him effectively unarmed.
The alien seemed to be unarmed as well so it was a level playing field, warmed by this thought Paul advanced on the descending crimson figure. Seeing him the alien jumped right over Paul's head and came to rest in a crouch on a tiny flat-topped boulder. Paul turned holding his blaster like a club then something buzzed inside his helmet, right inside his skull. It wasn't a radio transmission because his audio feed was severed no this was more like a wave of pure psychic energy and its power made him stagger.
You can't win you can't stop us.
Paul heard his oxygen tank clunk against stone and realised he'd dropped his club, he felt incredibly weak as though hung over, maybe his suit was torn and this was oxygen depravation.
We are tomorrow and you are the past.
He blinked at the green tinted face it was an impassive mask devoid of emotion like the lifeless visage of a corpse, but the mind speaking to his mind seethed with passion and belief.
The outcome is already decided, we can engineer time itself.
Paul swallowed he was both shocked and demoralised by the telepathic words, but some part of him refused to just give in.
"We're going to stop you," he said with his voice sure the alien could hear him in some way. "Somehow we'll find a weakness, we'll break you. Nobody is invincible."
The alien rose to his full height and parted both hands, you cannot kill destiny Mr Foster look in the mirror and see our reflection in your eyes.
Paul didn't understand or maybe he didn't want to.
That was when Alec fired and at that range he never missed, the green visor exploded and thick swirling gobs of emerald gel spun into the air. The alien jerked backwards so far then sank sideways, his suit crumpling as though empty.
Paul was still staring at the deflated crimson suit when Freeman reached him attaching a small silver disk to the side of his helmet, "Paul can you hear me, are you all right?"
Raggedly Foster hissed, "Yes I'm fine, what about Gay?"
"Ryan is with her, she's okay. Are there any other survivors?"
The anguished look Paul gave his colleague said it all and Freeman's nod was resigned.
"All right Paul let's get you out of here."
"What about the UFO?"
"Ryan and Virginia are going to have a look at it, they're the technical experts I'm just a space cowboy."
Knowing this to be far from the truth Paul summoned a hoarse laugh from deep within his sore and very tired frame.
"What about earth Alec, have the aliens attacked SHADO?"
Frowning the Welshman said, "No we haven't had any sightings at all in the past week."
It made no sense why destroy moon base, literally kicking open the front door and not exploit the situation?
"Are you sure there's been no UFO activity?"
"Come on Paul let's back you up to the probe, we can discuss all this later with that crazy blond guy."
With Ryan stood next to her Gay felt better, he was a good man in a crisis having once been in the SAS. The two of them stared at the alien machine before them, both impressed but for different reasons. For herself Gay wanted some answers, she wanted the thing to yield it's secrets allowing SHADO to be able to fight back. But as she took a step forward Ryan's glove landed on her shoulder, and she soon saw why.
The beacon on top of the craft was glowing brightly in fact it was pulsating rapidly and in sequence. The two humans backed away to cover.
"Is it going to blow?" Ryan wondered out loud. "Or take off?"
As the former head of a complex communications colony Gay had another theory, the UFO was signalling to somewhere, transmitting information.
"Tell Recon Probe 1 to try and pick this up, in the past the aliens have used ultra frequency 378 it's a good place to start."
She heard Ryan speaking to Col Lake, and Lake's cool-as-a-cucumber responses but what happened next shocked them all rigid.
The UFO seemed to stretch upwards and shimmer violently as though made of elastic. The very atomic bonding that held it together seemed to be dissolving and before Gay's eyes the thing became less tangible and more like a holographic image going out of focus. Then it was gone, sucked out of existence literally fading away.
"I don't believe it," she heard Ryan say. "What in heaven's name was that?"
No doubt in the days and weeks ahead a lot of people would voice this sentiment.
Virginia's features were grim and she wasn't the only one once the joy of reunion had faded, which it did very quickly. On a large monitor the contents of the alien signal (well all those that could be retrieved) where visible as a set of schematics, blueprints, files and lists.
"How?" Freeman wanted to know. "I mean that's everything, every nut and bolt, every son and daughter in SHADO, positions, capacity, armaments."
"Could they have hacked into our computer system?" Paul wanted to know.
"Maybe they uploaded moon base records," Ryan offered.
"Maybe they can read minds," Virginia said sardonically making it clear she didn't believe that or any of the previously tabled theories. "I think the answer is more obvious and less pleasant."
Yes thought Gay and it chilled every bone in her body to think about it. Somewhere in SHADO and fairly high up was a person or persons with a very different agenda to everyone else.