Fortress Atlantis Page 5

  "The methane-breathers are probably behind it all," I continued. "The monstrous races in the Galaxy seem to adopt more and more a strategy of a war with multiple fronts. They apparently have tremendous reserves of intelligent beings and material. We can't afford to lose a single vessel. Our heavy losses in the defense zone clearly prove that the time for warning calls is past. As I said before, we must open fire as soon as we spot something which looks like an alien spaceship. Our own units will exchange identification signals in conformance with the squadron manual at five phase intervals. Experience has shown that our opponent is unable to decipher in time. That'll be all for now. We'll have to wait till we find out what is going on in the Larsa system. Thank you!"

  The first transition took place ten minutes later and after the fourth jump we were in the small planetary realm of the yellow sun.

  After we had pulled out of the rematerialization shock the alarm whistles shrilled throughout the units of my squadron and our excellent rangefinders swept the space around us without detecting any unknown metallic objects. Our energy-sensors picked up only the impulse-waves of our own propulsion systems.

  We sped through the satellites in a staggered formation 20 kilometers apart, crossed the paths of the fourth and fifth planets till the third planet which was in a favorable position came into view on our observation panel.

  As I was certain that our colonists had established some cosmic defense stations during the last two years, I called Atlantis by hyperradio. I didn't want to take the risk of losing any ships to a protective barrage from my own people.

  The answer came five minutes later when we were already close to the orbit of the third planet. Capt. Feltif, the specialist for settlement planning, appeared on the hyperset screen. When he recognized me on his own screen, his tense face relaxed and he broke out in a radiant grin. "Atlan!" he shouted in jubilant excitement. "I knew it. Everything is all right with us. I'm busy sending the natives into the forests and evacuating Atlopolis. The construction of fortresses in the provinces is underway. I let them construct simple fortifications of stone on the two southern continents to give our enemy the impression that he faces the work of primitive people. An evacuation plan for transporting the settlers to these bastions in case of emergency has been prepared. Stocks of foods have been stored. Our two cargo ships have been moored at the bottom of the ocean with an emergency crew to wait for further developments. If necessary we'll have to retreat below the surface of the water."

  As Feltif continued his report, I noticed that my staff officers looked at each other aghast. What was going on here? Why did they flee into the forests and to primitive towers of stone under the threat of an attack by the methane-breathers? Didn't they know that the methaners burn up the atmosphere of oxygen planets, which was poisonous to them?

  My planning expert kept describing all sorts of countermeasures. He must have accomplished incredible feats but we failed to understand what it was all about. Finally I interrupted him by raising both hands.

  Far ahead of us the minor little sun grew into a brilliant ball of fire. We had to pass in its proximity if we wanted to reach the second planet situated just beyond it. We maintained our speed with a steady energy output at 5% below the velocity of light. The weaker propulsion systems of the light cruisers required at such speeds intermittent booster-mass injections which soon would make a replenishment of their tanks necessary. Our impulse-converters digested virtually all-imaginable substances as long as their melting point was not above 1650°C.

  Capt. Feltif stopped in the middle of a sentence. His tanned face mirrored his surprise. He seemed to comprehend our attitude as little as we could make sense of his.

  "I get the impression that we're talking at odds," I said to him. "When I came here I was of the opinion that the methane-breathers had invaded this system. What has really happened? I don't believe you've become a fool. What are you trying to accomplish with your evacuation measures? Didn't anybody tell you what has occurred in the meantime? Or did your connections with Arkon break off?"

  "Of course not, Your Highness," my capable officer stuttered, perplexed. "Naturally we've been kept up to date. We've already received fully equipped artillery units for our defense directly from Arkon as well as specialists for ground-to-space defense. But that's not the point, Your Highness."

  Tarth, my old mentor appointed by the Imperator, cursed audibly and stared at the young man on the picture screen as if he wanted to bite his head off.

  "By the ancients of Arkon!" I shouted irately. "What's the matter with you? Is it impossible to get a straight answer from you? Why was I requested to come here?"

  Feltif finally realized that we were completely ignorant of the facts. His face expressed horror. "Be careful, Your Highness," he quickly called out. "Our mathematicians are in the process of figuring out the phenomenon. We're subjected to periodic intervals of multiple attacks which can only occasionally be monitored. They don't appear to follow a controlled scheme but seem to strike abruptly at any convenient opportunity instead. The phenomenon can't be explained in simple terms. Our five dimensional sensors register a distinct energy-echo but our individual oscillation-recorders fail to respond. We assume that the enemy is supra-dimensional."

  I suppressed an outburst of rage welling up in me and tried to ignore the impulses of my extra-brain which tenaciously inquired why I had been sidetracked from the battlefield because of these diversions. "Continue!" I demanded, shaking inside. "Go on with this claptrap. I'm willing to listen to you if I don't lose my temper. Quiet back there!"

  Several loudly laughing officers froze at once. Strictest discipline prevailed in the Imperial Fleet. I had the power to administer severe punishments.

  "I beg your pardon, Your Highness," Feltif replied in obvious despair. "But I have no other choice than to tell you exactly what happened. Explicit reports have been presented to the Great Council. Weren't you informed of them?"

  "We've got more important matters to worry about, Captain," I admonished him angrily. "We're engaged in the most horrible struggle in the history of the Empire. Our dominion is slowly dismembered and our people are bleeding to death. Each ship is needed and every single man. How can you expect the leading brains of the Council of Arkon, who are so preoccupied with the most vital affairs, to look into such unbelievable stories? Isn't it enough that an elite squadron like mine has been diverted from the scene of the crucial action?"

  "I'm prepared to face a Judicial Court, Your Highness," Feltif said quietly. "May my grandchildren be cursed if I falsify the facts. On Larsa, the second planet of Larsa's star, 150,000 colonists have already vanished without a trace. Everything else is still there. Not a shot has been fired from a hostile source, no bombs exploded, nor has any ship tried to land. We defended ourselves desperately but we were shooting at invisible targets. I've personally seen several soldiers of the army guard turn into shadows before my eyes before they vanished into nothing as if dematerialized. We've detected alien spaceships but we were unable to come to grips with them. We no longer have any warships here. Your Highness. Every available cruiser of the colonial defense fleet has been called back more than a year ago. All we've left are a few poorly armed cargo ships in which we don't dare venture into space."

  My wrath subsided. I knew Feltif well enough to realize that he didn't make up silly stories. Tarth seemed to have become worried too, his face looked pinched. On his instructions the communication center had switched the telecom to a circuit enclosing all ships so that the commanders and officers of the other units could listen in.

  "Has there been any attack on Atlantis?" I inquired anxiously.

  "No, Your Highness, only on the colonists of the second planet. We're probably too insignificant. Besides I've taken all protective measures, as I've mentioned before. However the Larsa colony has already grown too big and immobile. A year ago I decreed a law against new births. I wanted to prevent babies being dragged into the chaos. I request the belated approval of this rul
e."

  I dismissed his appeal with a gesture of my hand. He had acted logically and correctly. These colonists were not adapted to be spacefleet soldiers and I would have been unable to use them now since I didn't have a training ship with hypno-schooling equipment at my disposal.

  While this conversation was taking place we rushed past the sun of Larsa. I noticed the activation of the ever-ready protective shield-projectors. Our powerful forcefields absorbed or reflected the energy rays of the small sun. The flaming glow in the outer region of our protective screen diminished the farther we got away from the fiery furnace.

  Minutes later he began to brake, decelerating at 500 kilometers per square second, and manoeuvred toward the spot where the second planet would be on our arrival.

  Our connection with Capt. Feltif was still intact when we received a message from Commander Henos. The radio center brusquely interrupted our talk which now lost its urgency.

  Henos' loud voice seemed to penetrate every comer of the warship's commander center. "Cruiser Tantor, Commander Henos to Crystal Prince. Observed alien object. Poor hyper-echo. Normal sensors fail to register object. Point density only 103 per measuring field-grid. No optical reception. Object appears to be nebulous. Computation of energy output impossible. Impulses of higher order. The ship must be partly in hyperspace and partly in the normal universe. I request your orders."

  "Caution!" I heard somebody shout at the top of his voice. It was Feltif who was still on the hookup and had heard the report. "Caution!" he repeated. "This is the way it always begins. The last attack occurred three months and two days ago. They're returning now, although it's much earlier than the time we had anticipated according to our probability studies. Your Highness, they're on the attack again!"

  The radio officer on duty broke off the connection. He acted according to the rules which put the security of the flagship first under these circumstances.

  The brightly shining sickle of the second planet was suspended in the space before us. Its huge mantle of clouds so strongly reflected the light of the sun that I would have had no trouble recognizing it among hundreds of other worlds.

  I looked around for Capt. Tarth. When I saw his erect figure that had suddenly assumed an energetic expression, I pushed the alarm button without a word. Super-light-speed code signals flashed from the antenna of my flagship. The cruisers of my unique squadron scattered apart in such a hurry as if they had to escape the sudden birth of a supernova.

  I heard the howling of the propulsion system in the equatorial bulge of the gigantic Tosoma. Seconds later we also received an echo. The measurements ascertained by Henos were correct to a hair. I could depend on these magnificent men from Arkon. There was not one colonist among my crew. They were all pureblooded Arkonides and each one was ready to fly in the face of death with open eyes.

  "We'll see about that!" I heard somebody say shaking with emotion. I looked around until I realized that I had spoken these words myself.

  Tarth smiled grimly. His face reminded me of the Atlantic marble which the pioneers from Zakreb had so enthusiastically admired shortly after their landing. That stone was said to be white as snow and laced with fine reddish veins. Tarth's face looked just like that.

  We brandished the mighty weapons of the Tosoma and the next moment I was thrown back by the recoil of a concentrated impulse salvo. One of my men caught me before I fell to the floor.

  "I guess these uncanny aggressors came to the wrong address this time," I heard a young lieutenant murmur.

  I winked an eye at Tarth who had taken up his battle position. Our eyes met and then he listened again to the reports from the various departments. Everything functioned smoothly. It was a well-tuned and unfailing war-machine in action.

  I also shared the opinion that we would quickly finish off the phantom enemy. "Cruiser formation turn to ecliptic, ten off G," I ordered. Askohr and Paito go ahead with wedge attack. Tosoma in frontal assault with lead for 21/2% below light-speed. Manual fire. Ready? Go!"

  There was no visual sign of the atomic blasts from the muzzles of our impulse. The space void of all matter made the trajectories of the barrage invisible. However I could hear the awesome rumbling reverberating in the hull of the 800-meter sphere. The battle-hood of my safety chair was automatically pushed over my head and I switched over to the non-visual audio-communication system.

  Now my instructions could be heard everywhere in the ship. The communication center was attuned to hyperradio waves and operated with a scrambler code. All commands were transformed, consolidated and broadcast in a split second. The commanders listened in directly. There was only a slight delay caused by the deciphering but it amounted merely to 1/10th of a second.

  I expected to receive the announcement of our success in shooting down our enemy any moment. One of us was bound to score a hit.

  7/ ALIEN ATTACK

  A terrible growl emanated from the loudspeakers, ear shattering as if the sound were excessively amplified. I nearly jumped out of my seat.

  The officers in the Command Center of the Tosoma-most of them veterans of the defense battles in the nebula sector-craned their necks, staring in disbelief, as if transfixed, at the gallery of panoramic observation screens.

  However there was nothing to be seen. Our adversary was too far in the distance and Larsa's sun was too weak to make the dimmest reflex on the armored hull of the unknown ship.

  We continued our bombardment but received no sign of a hit. We only got a message from the heavy cruiser Igita under the prudent command of Capt. Cerbus that the registered object had veered off sharply in order to escape our energy salvos.

  At the same moment we heard the eruption of fierce screaming. We didn't know what the cause of it was until we received the evaluation of the robot machine in the communication center which reported with mechanical indifference: "Entire crew light-cruiser Matato casualty. Radio silent. Ship undamaged and maintaining its course. Fails to respond to interconnection commands."

  Reports similar to this had not been unusual during the last two years. Yet there was something peculiar about its wording and it startled me. How could the ship be undamaged if its crew had been last? And its course was still on target at the directed 10°?

  While I was racking my brain over these inconsistencies, Capt. Inkar of the battleship Paito informed us that the foreign object had suddenly disappeared and that it had probably retreated by a transition jump. This was contradicted by the fact that the highly reliable structure sensors of my flagship had failed to register a space disturbance. At that short distance of no more than three million kilometers it was practically impossible not to notice even the most minor transition. There was no way of eliminating a disturbance of the warped space.

  When we lost our target I broke off the one-sided battle and gave directions for salvaging the runaway cruiser Matato with a tractor-beam. The entire squadron performed a complicated 2-hour manoeuvre aimed at correlating with the flight of the Matato. Then we caught the 100-meter sphere in our irresistible tractor-beam and the vessel inched closer to the flagship.

  During our weird battle we had swerved from our initial course and the 20 planet was now hardly visible as a pallid little disk between the sparsely distributed stars in this sector of the Milky Way.

  After we had finally secured the Matato alongside the flagship, the officer in charge of the rescue team appeared. Lt. Cunor looked in astonishment at my light spacesuit as I flipped the helmet over my head and adjusted the oxygen supply.

  "Are you coming with us, Your Highness?" he asked dubiously.

  "Certainly," I said gruffly. "Are you ready?"

  Fifteen minutes later we opened the lower airlock of the light-cruiser whose crew no longer answered our calls. I climbed inside with 50 men and weapons ready to shoot. Capt. Tarth had joined us against my instructions. I could hear his hard breathing on my helmet-radio. I didn't wish to embarrass him but he understood my disapproving look and he frowned in disgust.

 
The Matato looked as if it had never had a crew aboard. We went systematically through every room without finding a single soul. When the search groups returned to the Commander Center of the completely undamaged ship, my convictions were shaken to their foundations. The men spread out their hands in despair. I had never seen a more disconsolate bunch of people. I recalled the ominous warnings of my planning officer Feltif who had spoken of the sudden disappearance of living beings.

  As I pondered the eerie mystery I heard someone utter an urgent cry for Lt. Cunor. We ran to the room where it came from and when the men stepped back to let me in, my heart almost stood still.

  A member of the Matato's crew lay on the floor. His body was hard and stiff down to his thighs but his legs were threshing around as if he were panic stricken and trying to flee from some tormenting apparition.

  It was a sight to make the most hard boiled men pale. I suppressed a groan, pushed Lt. Cunor to the side and kneeled down beside the helpless victim. When I tried to lift him up, I was unable to budge him. Not only was he as solid as rock but he weighed as much as well. The density of his organism must have been increased enormously. Only his legs that kept beating against the floor felt normal to the touch.

  I made room for a physician who tried to give an injection to the injured man. He gave up in bafflement.

  "What's the matter with him? Speak up!" I yelled at the medical officer. He looked at me, pale and stupefied. He didn't know. I directed him to take the soldier aboard the Tosoma and to try everything to restore him although I was afraid that it would be useless.

  After we returned to the flagship, I ordered an emergency crew to take over the ghost ship. The men obeyed my orders with the greatest reluctance. They were stunned by their mates' weird fate that defied explanation.

  Then we resumed our course again. Shortly before landing, my chief mathematician Grun asked to see me and soon entered, accompanied by his assistants. He was a fairly small man and quite old but his unusually smooth skin indicated that he had received a biomedical rejuvenation treatment. The Great Council had adopted a policy of prolonging the lives of more and more men if they were considered to be outstanding and irreplaceable. Earlier it had been unthinkable to obtain permission for a reactivation by submitting a request. Now every capable man was badly needed and Grun was one of them.