Episode 28:  Deus Irae

It happened in units of time, immeasurable to the human psyche--it may have been five million years ago; it may have been five hundred trillion, 'cajillion years ago. Who knows? The memory of the event faded to black under the magical, lavender tinted rays of Erakis' sun. As usual, with each subsequent retelling of the event, the story became increasingly convoluted, and ever so much more horrific. A century after peace had finally been established, a single cut was reiterated as Technicolor buckets of gore. Bland mothers--fearful themselves of the new order--tucked their children to sleep in huts of mud, and straw. Glowing kettles illuminated the rooms, as the sun had set, and they were now deprived of Mu Cephei's ability to vanquish the shadows. The mothers pulled the covers up over them with patronizing hands, and whispered "shhhhhhhh;" "shhhhhhhhhhh, children." After all, it was only a bad dream.

Bad dreams however, usually preside over some pretty undesirable facts--like a decayed, rotting, ant ridden, apple, shriveled, and put away--hopefully forever--in a filthy loin cloth. The stuff those attic trunks are made of.

The Perfect Order was nestled at the base of the Tarsec Mountains. Rows of huts, twenty on each side, formed a--well, almost perfect--line to the Vatec Gorge, where there was mist, and death. Countless millennia ago, this was the business district. Farms and farmers were scattered everywhere over a radius of three hundred acres. The boulder strewn, uncooperative, miserable fucked-up earth yielded--sometimes--the human equivalent to corn, and potatoes. Beyond the multi-spired temple of worship, was the palace of Critikye, the Arrogant One. That morning, on that fateful anniversary date--millions of years ago--he breakfasted on salted pork, and potatoes, and dressed in his armor, and mail. His battle helmet was spiked, and glittered like the last evening star. The light had turned blue against the high cathedral windows. Twilight time, and another day disappeared forever, and ever. His squire--mortally terrified and eyes perpetually down gazing at the sight of his master--arrived to tell him that his carriage was ready. The destroyer told him he had one last task to perform before leaving, and yonder squire fled without further invitation. The lord of the castle crept down the spiraling steps, feeling the granite, and algae slide gracefully beneath his boot shod feet. He stopped, and pulled back the scarlet tapestry. Beholden to him was the site of his mistress sleeping with his brother. They were petrified at first, the woman pulling the covers up over her bosom. Brother Bartek's skin was ashen, save for the blue trim around his icy lips.

At this sight, the destroyer laughed heartily. He laughed so high, and so sweet, and for so long, that he convinced both culprits that it was without a doubt the funniest sight he had ever seen. After a while, they too began to see the situation as humorous. It wasn't; it wasn't humorous one iota, but they laughed any way. Being the homicidal Jinn that he was, the destroyer waited until their laughter reached perfect jocularity, and then he ran them both through with his sword.

Using the bed sheets to remove the entrails of his mistress' womb, he exited the chamber, snuffing the candle out as he went.

At the hollowed entrance to the Vatec Gorge, the battle was waged. Fierce northerly winds cascaded brown, and red leaves everywhere. Above hung Erakis' quartet of pomegranate shaped satellites. Beyond them was the other world. The place of dragons, and damnation, it was rumored. The destroyer took all rumors seriously, however. It came from his days of ruling in the land of dark stars, and white space. There was a place, and a time--he knew--when all measuring sticks must necessarily be broken over one's knee.

His enemy waited by the black witch tree--up to his armored joints in dead, yellowing grass. His head was shaped like a crescent moon, and his battle-axe was already drawn.

The destroyer dismounted from the carriage, knowing that his enemy was from another land. He was inexperienced--almost naive in his understanding of the cosmos. He was a believer in nomenclature, and numbers. He would not attack until he was certain he would be attacked. It brought a tear to the destroyer's eye--so valiant, and all encompassing of character. As he drew his battle-axe, and drew towards the witch tree, he reminded himself to say a prayer for the holiest opponent he had ever vanquished....

The proximity alert sounded at fifty thousand kilometers without prior warning. Sandra Benes stared down at her desk, jack slapped with surprise, and disbelief. Almost falling backwards in his seat, Paul Morrow leaned over, and looked at the panel himself. The remote status panels were still dark. The contacts had appeared out of no where--seemingly, they had emerged from some where in the dark limbo between the Moon, and the planet encased in swirling, violet clouds.

"Where did they come from?" John Koenig said, vaulting down the steps to the operations level with Victor Bergman flanking him.

"I don't know." The Data Analyst replied, watching the plasma thermometer as the orbital satellite telemetry to finished loading. "There was absolutely no indication on our long range scanning systems."

*****

Angelina Verdeschi sighed as she sat back in the white plastic chair in the travel tube, heading for Main Mission. She had just spent the last two hours trying to comfort her son, 8 month old Nicholas Carter. The normally happy child began screaming inconsolably about 1/2 hour after she left him with his nurse that morning. He babbled and cried mournfully for hours until, out of desperation and perhaps the need for a break, the nurse called her during a late morning meeting in technical. Dr. Mathias had once again determined there was nothing physically wrong with him, as he handed her the screaming baby with some relief when she arrived in Medical Center.

What was perhaps the most disturbing to Angelina was the terrible images she saw as she was trying to comfort him; images of mass destruction to Alpha; Images of death and suffering abounded. After about 2 hours of unrelenting crying in her arms, the child collapsed from sheer exhaustion into a deep slumber. Angelina had an afternoon Command Conference but also wanted to arrive a few minutes early to catch Alan Carter and tell him what happened.

Angelina walked into Main Mission through the right archway, noticing the apparent tension in the room. She glanced at the big screen; then she did a quick double take.

"That's not possible." Paul Morrow stated, though the images being telecast through the electronic ether said otherwise. He almost felt like taping a sign to his own backside: PINCH ME IF I'M NOT DREAMING. Chances were, he would get a good one. His every instinct told him so.

"Com-scan results." Koenig said. "Confirm." Like a Grimm's Fairy Tale, the book got longer, and longer, and the typeset increasingly indiscernible.

"The contacts are real." Sandra assured them, after double, and triple, and quadruple checking the satellite feedback. The bogeys had made deft use of the double blind technique. Their angle of approach would bring them over the far side, in a low altitude course over the Xenophanes Crater. Their apparent heading was upwards, towards the Polar Regions.

Ben Ouma waited transfixed for the print out to unfurl, tearing the tape away from the feed with a single swipe of the hand. His brow furrowed as he moved down the list of known facts.

"Their size, and weight is consistent with what we know." He verified, while at the same time, considering how grand it would be to be dyslexic, if only for a moment. "Their velocity is trademark Ram Jet Propulsion."

He shrugged.

Contained within the box dimensions of the big screen were three vessels. They moved swiftly, in gull-like formation, one atop the other rather than making themselves more accessible targets by travelling side, by side, one would suppose. Their markings were orange. The command modules, wider, more stream-lined than the beam of Moonbase Alpha's pudgy, out of shape, over-the-hill, Eagle Transport Fleet. The magazine was cylindrical. There were no visible hatches for ingress on the side. Alan Carter remembered quite vividly, how many times he had been called upon to slip through one of the topside submarine hatches on one of those things. Oh, they were beautiful ships. Of that you could be certain. Models of astronomical and military profundity. There was no visible landing gear. There was no need. The ships they were seeing now were creatures that were born, and died in space--most of the time, ferrying untold others to hell with them before they went. Launched from NSA Star Forts to destinations that were as vulnerable as they were indefensible. Each of the ships bore outward nacelles that Koenig, and Carter immediately identified as the characteristic, dual missile launchers. Bringing up the rear--a piece of tres beau engineering, surpassed by none--was a single, Ram Jet Engine Bell.

"Those are Hawks." Victor Bergman said, placing one hand on John Koenig's shoulder for effect. "Those are Mark IX Hawks."

"They're war machines." Carter corrected. "And that's enough for me."

"Get going, Alan," Koenig said grimly, slapping him on the shoulder.

"Coop," Carter leaned over the cap-comm station calling flight control, "Prepare Eagles 1, 5 and 7 for launch." Then pressing another code," Frasier, Graham, move it."

As Morrow ordered all non essential personnel to the underground shelters, Carter and Ang briefly gazed at each other; he nodded to her slightly then left the room. Angelina's eyes tracked him until he disappeared through the left archway. She knew this day would come, sooner or later, though she was hoping much, much later. She knew that the day would come when the probability was mercilessly high that she would never see him again. Angelina did not have time to contemplate the enormous odds against Alan Carter; she had work to do.

"Grace," she called Nicky's nurse, "you heard the order. Don't pack anything. Take Nicky down stairs now.This is the real deal and not a drill."

Upon Nurse Grace's acknowledgement, Angelina switched another channel and to conference the 3 managers. There was a great deal of noise in Main Mission with the activity to secure the base.

"Guys," she started. "We have 3 Mark IX Hawks approaching, closing fast with unknown intentions." Joe Erhlich, Patrick Osgood and Pete Garforth faces' dropped.

"Secure your areas. Do the best you can" Angelina did not need to tell them what to do; they were all experts in their particular areas but time was limited and running out.

"Report to Paul when you are secure. Joe, I'm on my way to the Main Power Generation area." There was no further discussion as she cut the link.

The only thing Angelina could do at this point was to help her people secure Technical, in particular the power generation areas. Also, she was not particularly interested in watching the battle on the big screen since she had a very personal interest in it. She wasn't sure she could take watching Carter's Eagle possibly getting blown up before her eyes.

Koenig nodded to Angelina and returned to the business of securing the base, as Angelina left the activity and buzz of Main Mission to the Main Power Generation area

The squadron filled the big screen with 'ner do well intent, getting closer, larger, nastier. They climbed expertly over the Compton Range, working their way north.

"Paul, keep trying to contact them." Koenig said, and advanced to his desk.

At the controller's desk, there were two square, white amplification switches on the forward panel. They were used to boost the Omni-band, interstellar parabola. Morrow thumbed both buttons simultaneously, and spoke into the microphone. If his voice was heard, somewhere in the crackling, static-filled Sargasso between the two worlds, no sign was given.

"This is Moonbase Alpha calling. We are people from the planet Earth, please acknowledge."

Zilch, and more zilch. The golden, outer planet peaked around it's neighbor's shoulder at them, but otherwise nothing. Morrow looked blankly at Sandra, and Ben Ouma before continuing.

"I repeat, this is Moonbase Alpha calling. We are people from the planet Earth. Please acknowledge."

In the mean time, the alien fleet cleared the Compton Mountains, and moved on towards the Belkovich Crater with inexplicable determination.

*****

In the belly of Launch Pad Three, Miguel Atiqua was on a cherry picker, capping off Eagle One's propellant tanks when Gordon Cooper, and Alan Carter, and Tom Graham charged through the hangar doors. The latter, and the former were already in their orange flight suits. Carissa Englebert looked up from her spreadsheet, momentarily startled by the hectic revision to protocol.

"Get him down off there." 'Coop barked, almost causing Miguel to topple from his cherry picker. "And clear the goddamn area."

"We're still prepping the fuel tanks." The flight engineer protested.

"No time." Carter said, checking the fuel pressure on Antiqua's zamboni as he headed up the steps. Eight thousand pounds was as good as it would get. "They're prepped enough."

Cooper waved his arms symophorically to the technicians in the crow's nest high above. Moments later, the tractor driver cranked up beneath them, and Eagle One moved forward on the conveyor belt, taking Miguel Antiqua with it. He jumped from the platform, tucked, and rolled back onto the hangar floor--effectively throwing his rotary cup, way, way out of joint.

"'Coop, hook us up." Carter said as the ship moved towards the crane at the foot of the space doors. "As soon as we're away, I want Flight Two ready for immediate launch."

The doors to the passenger module closed slowly on them as the electronic Red Alert Klaxon echoed through the underground garage. While the block was being lowered onto Eagle One's trellis, Carter, and Graham sprung into the command module, dropping hurriedly into their respective seats.

"Main motors." Carter said, sliding into position before his console.

*****

In Main Mission, Andy Dempsey had to switch over three times before he could find the right satellite transponder. The encroaching ships were playing an ingenious game--albeit a masochistic game--of hide, and seek with them. 'Booga-booga-booga. Tag, you're dead. The alternate cameras showed them verging on the Plato basin. They were now only two thousand kilometers from Moonbase Alpha.

"Attention all sections Alpha." The commander said, hearing his voice echo through his own damn office. "Alien ships are approaching the base, and their intentions are not known." It was a clarion call for action that could be heard in every corridor, laboratory, travel tube, living room, and restroom in the complex.

"Eagle Flight One will intercept." The orders could be heard, booming from the communications posts. Ron Fugita, and Angelina Robinson, and about thirty pale-faced others, listened carefully, having no idea whatsoever as to what was going on. "Flight two to back-up positions. Emergency, and technical crews stand by. Medical Center prepare to receive casualties." On the wards, though, Helena Russell had fought through the mad rush in the corridors early, and was proud to announce that she, and Bob Mathias were already ahead of the First Aid/ Trauma Game. "Priority One to launch pad areas. Priority Two to medical."

Perchance they heard a rap, tap, tapping at their chamber door. Quoted the Hawks, "nevermore."

*****

Velma Hill was in corridor 15, playing traffic cop and crowd control.

"This way, this way," she motioned, to the non-essential and off duty personnel. "Down to the shelters. Walk quickly, don't run." Velma tried to keep her voice strong, steady and autocratic. Velma felt sick to her stomach; a feeling of dread and doom crept over her.

*****

In the Main Power Generation Room, Angelina and Joan Conway bolted down the mezzanine stairs. Non critical transformers had been taken offline. Power had been reduced in the non-critical areas with Launch areas, Medical Center and Main Mission retaining all phases of power. Carter Jackson had been working on bringing the online reactors to minimal functioning status, flooding the cores in all but one.

"Seal reactor bulkheads," Angelina called into the PA system linking all nuclear reactor room. In Nuclear Reactor 1, George Crato, jumping from his desk and knocking his clipboard to the floor, ran out of the room, as the great reactor room doors slowly slid shut.

"Manufacturing is secure, "Patrick Osgood spoke from the compost. "However the plating baths are still draining from the open tanks into the underground storage receptacles."

"No time to worry about that, Patrick, "Angelina replied. "Get your people out of there."

As Patrick cut the link, Peter Garforth appeared on the compost. "Still securing equipment and shutting down testers, Ang."

Angelina looked at Carter Jackson and nodded. Joan Conway nodded and said "Go ahead, we're all set."

Angelina and Carter Jackson headed toward the electronics and testing labs. Angelina's comlock paged her.

"Ang," Paul said calmly, " once Technical is secure, the Commander wants you back in Main Mission."

"Right, Paul, "Angelina replied, though she did not feel right leaving her people. "I'm going to the electronics lab to help out Pete. Once he's all set, I'll be right up."

Morrow nodded and cut the link

Angelina and Carter Jackson rounded the corridor and stepped inside the electronics lab where Pete Garforth and Julio Armando were deactivating and powering down testers, as well as physically securing the massive units.

*****

In Main Mission, all eyes were watching the approaching Hawks and the Eagles that were closing on them.

"20 seconds," Morrow solemnly announced. The counter beep..beep..beeped....

"We're locked in on them, Commander," Carter stated from the blue and white monitor under the big screen, as he closed and sealed his visor.

"15 seconds" Morrow declared. Beep...Beep...Beep...

"It's an attack, John, "Bergman stated with certainty. Koenig stared at the big screen. He did not appear to be moving a muscle, although his jaw muscle on the left side of his face began to spasm involuntarily.

"10 seconds," Beep....beep...beep....

"We can't hold them," Carter's shout booming through the Dolby speakers.

"Alpha's wide open!!" Victor moved directly behind Koenig.

"5 seconds," Beep...beep...beep.....

*****

The creeping task force Eagles circumvented the Hawks over the Alpine Highlands. Breaking jets were fired on both sides. At a distance it appeared that the first volley had already been fired. This was only the prologue, however.

"Flight leader to Flight One." Carter said into his helmet microphone, remembering his baptism of fire over the Tri-Con Space Platform. "Listen up, mates. It is possible for an Eagle to dust one of these things, but here's what you're going to have to do. There's a reactant coil that feeds into their primary fuel tanks. Hit them right on the beak. If you miss, you're going to get waxed."

The red bar lines of the digital target display criss-crossed Carter's visor. He nodded to Graham to take over the yoke, and flipped up the red safety panels on the laser firing controls. He elected to use the switch on the right, which would output the narrow, cutting beam.

Then interminable wait came to a single, irrevocable order from Main Mission.

*****

"!!!!!!!! FIRE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Eagle 1 fired its laser volley, hitting the center Hawk. The primary fuel tanks glowed momentarily then the ship exploded from the spreading heat and fire.

Eagle 7 fired its volley, hitting the lower Hawk. Eagle 7 fired again and as it did so , the lower Hawk's super structure collapsed and exploded into three large pieces; the fiery wrecks pummeling down to Moonbase Alpha.

Bill Frasier, in Eagle 5, fired his laser volley and missed as the Hawk suddenly swung around hard to starboard. Eagles 1 and 7 took evasive action as the Hawk suddenly came around behind them, targeting Eagle 5.

"Flight leader, this is Eagle 5, I'm in trouble..cover me…cover me… AAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!"

The crackle of static was followed by: Silence. Eagle 5 and Bill Frasier were vaporized.

The lone Hawk bore down on Moonbase Alpha firing its remaining missile. The missile hit and annihilated Launch Pad 3 in a fiery maelstrom. The hawk swept low over Alpha, firing its turrets.

Inside the electronics lab, Angelina, Carter Jackson, Peter Garforth and Julio Armondo was securing the equipment.

"LOOK!!!!" Jackson said, aghast, pointing to the viewport. The Hawk was diving straight for them.

"Let's get outta here!!!! NOW!!!!" Ang shouted..Carter Jackson was already out the door in the hallway.

"No! Wait!" Julio Armondo protested, "I need to finish reprogramming the solar batteries. Just a minute!!!"

They did not have a minute.

The remaining Hawk fired its turrets, shattering the viewport window.

Garforth grabbed his supervisor, just as the viewport blew outward. A geyser of glass, and plastic evacuated into the nitrous/oxygen filled night.

"Julio!!! JULIO!!!!!!" Angelina shouted in horror, as Peter Garforth practically pulled her arm out of its socket through the door. Carter Jackson already had his comlock out and closed the door.

The electronics manager pulled her to safety--the solar batteries were A-Okay, now.

Julio Armando was not so lucky. He was caught in the ensuing cyclone, and pulled through the zero gravity towards the collapsed viewport....

As Julio Armondo's body hurled through the viewport into the blackness of space, Carter in Eagle one, fired at the offending Hawk. The last hawk of the first wave exploded, debris slamming into nuclear reactor #2.

"Get down to the shelters," Angelina ordered Garforth and Jackson, stoically. Julio Armondo was the first casualty that she knew of, anyway. She needed to get to Main Mission per the Commander's instructions; she was sure she would find out her other losses.

"But….." Garforth protested.

"Do it, " Angelina cut off the big man. Angelina looked at him sincerely. "If something happens to me, you will need to take over."

Before he could say more, Ang turned on her heel and headed the relatively short distance to Main Mission.

*****

Minus a few feathers, to be sure, but for the most part Eagle one was flying high. Carter took over the big seat again, and turned his ship away from the orbiting debris. The forty-five degree turn brought him around through the aquarium of metal shards, and plastic insulators which bounced off the intact spacecraft, like hacked off Lilliputians on Gulliver's tail. He adjusted his pitch, watching the eight ball angle its way back into something like a normal coordinate line. Somewhere beneath him, the blasted rubble of Launch Pad Three drifted into range. The platform appeared to be intact, through smeared with reliquary traces of Eagle Five, and Eagle Five's crew. The boarding tube was gnarled, and twisted like a goose's neck. Unable to bear the load, it dangled akimbo from the embarkation area, which was showing no lights.

Carter executed a five-second burn which gave him a panoramic view of the remaining areas of the base. They appeared to be nominal.

So, the bad news went something like this:

Three dead Hawk pilots.

Three dead Hawk gunners.

Two dead Eagle pilots--well, one dead Eagle pilot, and the ambiguous passing of Bill Frasier. Give it a 1.5 loss for the home team.

"This is Carter in Eagle One." He said, motioning to Graham as he caught a glimpse of the gas clouds rising from the walls of Technical Section. "What's the situation down there."

"Fair." John Koenig replied squarely. "It could have been worse. Much worse. Nice work, Alan."

Carter paused, and appraised his co-pilot, who had already flipped up his visor, and was cavalierly wiping the sweat from his chin. Prepared so soon for the heroes welcome, followed by the ticker tape parade down Times Square, the Cross Of Freedom, and the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, shaking their pom-poms, and their anatomically perfect navels in his face. He wondered if the same premature reverie had begun in Wolusky's Eagle.

For some reason, the founts of champagne had been set flowing, when by all rights they should have been dead.

"It was too easy," was the pilot's wet blanket judgement.

****

In Main Mission, Koenig was halfway back to his desk when the proximity alert sounded again. He honestly couldn't say he was surprised. Again, this new telemetry seemed to materialize out of thin air. No early warning. It was almost like a sadistic version of Mr. Scott was using his transporter to fuck with them. Paul Morrow removed his hand from the Red Alert silence breaker, and closed the multi-function hatch.

"We have a new contact." Sandra Benes announced, astonished perhaps by the method, but not by the approach itself. "Coming from the direction of the outer planet; in the vicinity of orbital reference 5-9-8."

The second wave of Hawks looped in over the flat iron icebergs of Anaximenes, like a cat preparing to disembowel a mouse. The problem was not one of meters per second, but rather kilometers per second. The fully operational Ram Jets propelled the gun ships towards sector 0.0 in a plasma free flow that was unequalled. Koenig doubted that they had returned to congratulate Carter's people on their fine shooting.

"Flight Two, skip the checks. Lift off immediately." The commander said, pouncing on Morrow's upper keyboard. Quietly desperate, but doing an apt job of hiding it, Victor Bergman moved in to survey the situation from Tanya Alexander's console. The mistake had been in mistaking the motives, and the intent of the encroaching vessels. This wasn't a duel. This wasn't one of those single shot guerilla campaigns--to be counteracted by a brave police action to punish the offending aliens to death. Oh no, the military complex on the purple planet obviously had a package deal in mind. Their goals were long, and lofty in both time, and carnage.

Rather than viewing Lexington-Concorde, and Bull Run as books unto themselves, Koenig saw both disputes for what they were: the first volleys in very long, very bloody conflicts.

"Looks like we have ourselves a war." He said, and the connection came down on the Main Mission operatives like iron blocks from the heavens. On the big screen, the squadron of Hawks negotiated the Sea Of Cold with freezing, at-home precision.

*****

The alien attack commenced after Pierre Danielle awoke from the most refreshing snoozer he had ever had. Elated dreams followed him all night long. He was driving around in a 1999 Firebird--candy apple red with tinted front, and rear windows, and dual cherry bombs in the rear. The t-top was open to let in all of that Polynesian glory that crowned the Maui skyline. Admiring himself in the rear view mirror, he had to admit he looked cool as a moose in his chic Raybans, and with a matching hula shirt. The fantasy was almost perfect. He had a pair of pink fuzzy dice over the dash, and a pink mini-skirted femme--and a ringer for Carolyn Ducey at that--sitting before the dash. This brunette goddess twirled her hair, and smiled exotically as Pierre whipped the bird into the driveway of his beach house, and applied the emergency break. His dream abode was a real charmer too--complete with a Hemingway view of the South Pacific; satellite television; a fully stocked wet bar; and a jacuzzi with overhead, whoopee mirrors, and three different types of light filters.

Of course the beach house's most esoteric feature was the boudoir--which the Carolyn Ducey clone immediately wanted to see. All night long. All night long.

When the pilot's alarm call came at 4:00 A.M., he yawned, stretched, and stumbled into the john wearing his red, and white boxer shorts. His routine had not altered in years. He shaved himself with a straight razor; splashed after shave balm on the numerous cuts left by the straight razor; brushed his teeth with replicated toothpaste, and gargled from a tube of replicated mouth wash so foul that Listerine tasted like Mountain Dew by comparison.

Afterwards, he hopped in the shower, and sung himself a tune:

"Oh, shake, shake, shake. Shake, shake, shake. Shake your booty. Shake your boo-tay-aaaaayyyyyyy."

His upstairs neighbor was Deadhead Ed Malcom, who had banker's hours. He had until 9:00 A.M. to report for duty, which gave him time to bitch, and pound the floor with his plunger before Pierre Danielle had time to finish the final stanza of his song. By the time he entered the mess hall, he was feeling gargantuan. No, better than gargantuan. He felt euphoric.

"Today is a good day to die." He said heroically.

"You're full of crap." Gonzales said, slopping his tray with powdered eggs, and just-like-bacon. Dave Reilly almost busted his funny hat, and his paper apron, back there behind the beverage dispenser; such was the humor that he saw in this remark. And that was okay. The pilot was feeling too fine. No disgruntled cooks, or defrocked geologist/dishwashers could ruin this imperial day.

Then the Red Alert sounded. That'll do it. Pierre Danielle thought to himself as his mood went immediately to the dogs.

*****

It was in the checkered half-light of the forest--far from the groves of the perfect order, that the Arrogant One took his battle axe, and cleaved his enemies helmet in two. With the looming orb of The Other as his witness, he stood gloating as the grass about the witch tree was showered with a violet mist....

*****

The second compliment of Hawks crossed the 60th parallel in time to see the spectacular rise of their neighboring world over the LaPlace Promontory. Their malodorous brains, all slugs, and mire. In the vague light, they brought trouble that lifted, and breathed, as Isaac Rosenberg would say. The vanguard of Eagle Flight Two lifted off from Launch Pad One--the facility that was closest to the command tower. Eagle Twelve rose into the dead, black sea on a chemically propelled magic carpet. Her pilot was preparing to initiate forward thrust, but then Hawk-D intruded upon Sector 0.0.

And so it goes.

Machine gun bursts of light appeared from a barrel just beneath the gun ship's command module. The fusion cannons roared soundlessly, and Eagle Twelve was vaporized before she had really had a chance to start. Launch Pad One was showered with comets of scrap metal; the embarkation area; the Ready Room, and the Corridor-G became a new kind of Swiss cheese for the Man in the Moon to palate. The collateral damage nary laid waste to Main Mission Control.

War is always a story--a grim, bloody, cadaverous story. Consider this: Rescue Eagle Nine was the only transport of it's kind equipped with a laser pack. On Earth, this new bell, and whistle was deployed to help in high orbital, First Aid applications. Ever so much more practical than grabbing the Jaws Of Life, and doing a space walk to pry open a crippled shuttle like a can of corn. That was on Earth. Here in deep space, other declarations had been made, and the Rescue Ship was now a fighter.

Eagle Nine never made it off the ground. Hawk-D appeared above her like Satan, and obliterated the entire craft before the hangar elevator ever reached the surface. In Main Mission, Angelina Verdeschi joined in the fun, entering to the left of the big screen, just as the lower ceiling panels--light ballast, high voltage wires, plastic tubing--nearly the whole 'shebang--gave into a structural overload worthy of John Dykstra. She almost bought the farm as one of the special effects came close to electrocuting her with the same DC Power Grid that she had once helped to service.

On Launch Pad Four, a lone ship soared upwards through the lines. Hawk-F moved faster, firing shells that were crawling with death, but Eagle 15 was well primed. Her pilot, one Pierre Danielle, had figured that a Bay of Pigs-like disaster was going to occur--why else had he been afforded the opportunity to dream of Hawaii, and women in painted mini skirts? With hard earned wisdom as his buffer, he had followed his captain's lead--taking off directly from the underground garage, rather than meeting the enemy nose, to nose, before bothering to unclip his holster.

Hawk-F was not impressed. The war ship came about 80 degrees starboard, and continued on, in hot pursuit of the one that got away.

"!!!Eagle Flight Two ineffectual!!!" Sandra Benes cried, coughing up a burning plume of plaster dust.

"!!!'Ang!!!" Koenig called, amidst the popping, crackling overload at the controller's desk. "!!!Inform Tactical!!! Tell them to prepare for an immediate ground assault!!!"

"Petrov!!" Angelina Verdeschi yelled into the commutation at the Technical desk. "Engage laser tanks now. Fire Laser turrets!!"

On the surface outside of MBA, 5 laser tanks, resembling Eagle command modules, took aim and began blasting at the Hawks above. At the same time, the three laser turrets swiveled silently into position. Hawk E, not to be left out of the action, immediately obliterated 3 of the 5 laser tanks, as debris scattered, smashing into the outside of Hydroponics Farm #1.

Also, for good measure, Hawk E pounced on 2 of the 3 laser turrets; so much for the ground defenses.

Hawk E then set its sights on Moonbase Alpha as Eagle 1 and Eagle 15 were engaging in play with Hawk D and Hawk F. Hawk E unleashed a fury of machine gun fire; the access corridor between the main technical labs, still filled with technicians frantically trying to reach the shelters suffered a breach.

Angelina immediately noticed the warning signal at the technical station. "Get out of that corridor...Close the bulkhead doors...NOW!!!!" she shouted as she brought up the camera for the corridor.

The structural integrity of the wall collapsed....the breach blew outwards as a gaping hole, at least 10 feet in diameter, opened up. Those who were left in Main Mission momentarily froze and watched the static filled big screen as at least 30 technicians were sucked out into the cold vacuum of space.

"!!NO!!" Angelina cried out, bolting to the right archway.

Victor Bergman grabbed her, effectively stopping her in her tracks.

"There's nothing you can do," Bergman whispered in her ear, half embracing her, half restraining her.

Angelina's face grew hot. She swallowed hard and did not blink. Blinking would mean the tears would start and there was no time or place for that right now.

"Paul, Ben, Ang, Sandra," Koenig said behind her. "Stay here with me. The rest of you, get below."

Main Mission was quickly vacated as Koenig turned to go up the stairs toward his desk. Turning around, Koenig said, "You too Victor."

Bergman gave Angelina a reassuring pat on the arm and walked out the right archway. Paul, Ben, Sandra and Angelina surveyed the damage around them, when their inspection was interrupted. Hawk E had resumed its assault and this time on the Main Mission tower.

Small explosions and fires erupted from the desks and at the computer consoles. Sandra and Ang leaped toward the computer panels under the balcony to put fires out. The monitor next to the fire Sandra was putting out exploded and glass shards flew outward, narrowly missing Sandra. Paul, Ben and the Commander were likewise putting out fires as more erupted and cables and plaster fell from the ceiling.

"BEN!!!! LOOK OUT!!!" Morrow, by chance looking up, saw an I-Beam hanging literally by a thread from the ceiling, suddenly gave away and crashed down on Benjamin Ouma. Ouma shrieked in agony as it landed on his left leg.

Hawk E had moved on to strafing Medical Center. As Morrow and Sandra rushed to Ben Ouma's aid, Dr. Helena Russell appeared on the right monitor under the Big Screen.

"John, we have an atmosphere leak.......John, can you hear me..."

"Dammit, Helena," Koenig punched the communication button, "Get out of there!!!"

"John, I don't know if you can hear me. I don't know how long it will hold."

Obviously, Dr. Russell could NOT hear him.

Koenig turned toward them. "Paul, Sandra, get Ben down to Medical in the lower levels. Ang, you stay here and cover Main Mission."

Koenig bolted out the door. Paul and Sandra, propping Ben up on either side, quickly left toward the lower levels. Angelina, with destruction all around her, was left alone in Main Mission

*****

Fifty kilometers above the lunar surface, Pierre Danielle was only a hair away from having his ass shot off. The camera mounted to Eagle 15's stern showed the interceptor firing a laser guided smart missile at him from its port rocket launcher. The pilot jerked the yoke upwards, and attempted to roll away from it. He felt a terrifying, metallic !!!Ka-Thump!!! with a wicked 'shimmy thrown in for good measure. The projectile's dorsal fin scraped the undercarriage of his passenger module. One of the keel thruster engine bells was sheared off. It spun away like a gray china cup in the palpable darkness. The good news: this was not enough to trigger the warhead's pressure sensors.

How fortunate for Pierre Danielle--a fact that was not lost on him. Ten seconds later, the timer hit 00.00 on the status panel, and the missile detonated about 40 meters south west of him. The bad news: Hawk-F had no intention of giving up, and the gap between the two ships was closing rapidly.

"Flight Two Eagle, you've got a buzzard on your backside." The voice suddenly boomed from the pilot's helmet microphone. "Come around to course 38.42.15. I suggest you continue evasive maneuvers, or you're history."

"Copy." Pierre Danielle said, filling the command module with barrels of his own sweat.

"???Big P???" Alan Carter asked, recognizing the voice on the radio.

Pierre Danielle had a very witty--one might say 'profoundly four-lettered'--remark to make concerning his late arrival at the party, but the announcement was interrupted when Hawk-F fired it's last tact missile. The pilot reversed thrust, and prayed. Prayed that this heat seeking leach was not smarter than Isaac Newton. The shell casing ran straight across the decelerating command module. Sparks flew from the overhead attitude control circuitry. The lights within the cockpit dimmed once, and then went out completely. Pierre Danielle was immediately thrown back into the seventeenth century--battling the forces of evil with only a candlestick to light his way.

The remaining missile exploded safely out of range. Then, it was out of the frying pan, and into the fire. The monitor showed Hawk-F cutting loose on him with its fusion cannons. The red dot beneath its command module, blinking on, and off, transmitting its lethal Morse code. The pilot had to decelerate to avoid being creamed by the missile. In so doing, he had also succeeded in throwing himself upon the matador's sword, or so to speak. There was no way he could dodge the on-coming shells; not at this range.

Pierre Danielle thanked God for his middle-of-the-road, so-so, sexually innocuous life. He waved good bye to the Moon, and to his friends, and to the fucksticks on the purple planet who had realized his passing at a more youthful age than he had ever imagined.

Somewhere behind him, Hawk-F exploded into a billion incendiary fragments.

"Got him." Wolusky could be heard shouting ebulliently over the pilot's helmet transmitter.

"Alright." Carter said, dispensing with the pleasantries. "Big P, you're with us. Flight One fall into formation. The game's not over yet. My scanner is showing three bogies approaching.

"Direction: LaGrange Point; location: the outer planet."

Again.

Carter did the math; it didn't require the likes of Nicol Tessla to figure it out. Hawks-A through C were neutralized, as was Hawk-F. Hawk-D, and Hawk-E were out of visual range, but he surmised that they were probably renovating Moonbase Alpha, even as they spoke. Their squadron had consisted of three heavy cruisers, one of which got roasted in the last fire fight. A simple process of elimination based on time, trajectory, and Carter's instincts revealed the identity of the newest impulses on his scanner grid.

Hawks G, H, and I had arrived as reinforcements.

*****

Hawk D and Hawk E had been doing a marvelous job redecorating Moonbase Alpha: obliterating Launch Pad 3, destroying Manufacturing Area B, reducing Reactor #1 and #4 to rubble, etc, etc, etc. As fate would have it, Alpha suddenly got a break.

One of the two remaining laser tanks, in conjunction with the remaining laser turret hit Hawk D, the Ram Propulsion Single Engine Bell ripped from the body of the ship. Hawk D's Engine Bell spiraled toward Hawk E, which, fortunately for the Alphans, was not evasive enough with his evasive action. Hawk E exploded instantly, lighting up the sky above the Main Mission tower like a Fourth of July fireworks grand finale display. That, however, was not the grand finale.

Hawk D spun out of control toward the lunar surface, crashing into Reactor #3. The resulting blinding explosion threw Angelina back hard against the steps behind the controller's desk.

The attack appeared to have stopped as there were no more explosions and rumblings; just the smothering computer panels and the occasional crackle of circuits broke the silence of Main Mission. Main Power had long since been lost and the wall panels exuded the eerie red glow of the emergency batteries.

Angelina bolted to the capcomm station. The screen still was functioning showing the Eagles and their relative positions to MBA. The beacons indicated the remaining fleet was 3 in number: Eagle 15, Eagle 7 and Eagle 1.

"Oh shit," Angelina muttered, as she saw 3 more contacts coming from the opposite direction of Alpha. Sensors confirmed the obvious: Alien, Mark IX Hawks in configuration.

Angelina opened a channel to Eagle 1. She was pretty sure that Carter already knew about the 3 new contacts. If nothing else, Angelina would get to hear Alan's voice again.

"Alpha to Flight leader. You have 3 more contacts closing from orbital reference 3-4-8. How are you guys doing up there?"

*****

What was left of Medical Center was the stuff of flea markets. Each of the three wards were virtually uninhabitable, though the beds were full. Bob Mathias picked himself up from the floor; plastic cuts riddled his hands, and face. Next to him, like a coffin, lay one of the collapsed commstations, where the only sense was the non-sense static coming from it's monitor. Above him, the low ceiling beams creaked the way boards creak on a condemned house. Here, and there, he felt the dirty rain of gray plaster in his hair, and in his face. The unit was dark, save for the light pouring through the smeared viewports. Beyond them, he could see the heat flash of the artillery barrage which was still at full tilt boogey.

"!!!Air leak!!!" He heard Ben Vincent shriek. Helena Russell, Dorothy Sullivan, Raul Nunez, and Jerry Parker moved into high gear then, you had better believe it. Nunez, in particular, took to evacuating patients so quickly, at one point, he looked like an EMT, instead of an RN; dragging along two in each arm.

Mathias grabbed one of the white canisters of seal-plast, and went to work.

"!!!Get everyone out of here!!!" He told his colleague, pushing him aside. The window panel showed that the atmospheric pressure was down to almost 60 PSI. The physician's lungs bled as he applied aerosol plastic to the cracked view plate. He thought of many things as he did so; towers falling in New York City; the last unblighted day of his life. Seconds later, John Koenig pushed back one of the double doors, and assisted Ann Delline, and Eva Zoref in removing a patient whose back had been twisted into a pretzel in the hangar of Launch Pad One.

Beyond the transparent plastic, Mathias caught a glimpse of one of the Hawks. He had the distinction of being the only one at ground level to see one with the naked eye. It turned it's sheol, and brimstone on the security complex. Moments later, the entire structure was gone. Just gone. He grabbed a handful of trampled paperwork from the floor, and reinforced his seal with a blank intake form. It was a noble effort, but it was an ignominious situation. Moonbase Alpha was being murdered, and the cracks in the viewport were like the silvery lathe of a spider's web.

"!!!Let's get out of here!!!" He heard Koenig, shout over the cacophony in the rear.

"!!!Bob!!!" Helena Russell called after him. Mathias added a blank x-ray flimsy, and the results of Ed Malcom's bunion removal--an agenda grabbing ailment, if ever there was one--to his bad patchwork job.

"!!!Hurry!!! It won't hold!!!"

The arms that bear hugged him had a black stripe on one sleeve. He fumbled backwards as the commander drug him forcibly along, his hush puppy heels leaving scrapes on the splintered tile floor. Ben Vincent, who Mathias had known, joined him in this intervention since he was an intern. They ferried him past Bed # 7, the sheets were a table cloth of gore, it's blue-lipped occupant, apparently left for dead. Past the fallen commstation--the power to it's monitor now gone. Koenig pulled him over the threshold, and Nunez closed the doors behind them.

Then, explosive decompression was actualized. The wards were emptied, and rendered totally lifeless in the resulting tsunami. As Bob Mathias looked around, Ben Vincent was not among the grateful refugees on the opposite side of the door.

*****

"Moonbase Alpha/ Flight One; we're reading you loud, and clear." Carter replied, displaying his immense relief to his brooding co-pilot, and any angels that might be riding it out in the cockpit with them. "We lost Frasier, but I reckon the rest of us are hanging in there." Though still out of visual range, the new violence was right around the corner. The blips on his scanner slowed as the war ships began their inertial breaking. It occurred to him that their position may not have showed up on the enemies' deep space tracking systems yet. Then he cuckolded himself for being such a block head. Of course they knew they were there. "Pierre Danielle is on the front line with us now.

"How about the other two Eagles. What's happening on Alpha."

Carter estimated that he had about one minute.

"Eagles nine and twelve were completely destroyed," Angelina sighed. "They didn't even make it off the Launch Pads."

"We've had extensive damage throughout the base. We suffered two major structural breaches resulting in explosive decompression," she paused then shuddered, "including a major one in technical that took at least 20 or 30 techs. All of the Launch pads have suffered some sort of damage. All the reactors are down and we're running on solar batteries....It's bad, Alan.."

"Everyone who made it down to the shelters is OK." Angelina added, "that includes Nicky."

"We're trying to send you more reinforcements but we're having a problem with the hoists on the only functional launch pad, #3. We'll try to send you help but right now you guys are the only thing stopping them from getting at us."

She tried to be encouraging...there just wasn't much to be encouraging about, this time.

Carter's smiled reassuringly from the other side of black, and white Monitor Land.

"We'll take care of you." He said, and it came as a bitter note that he would be late to the party if he didn't sign off soon. By their angle of inflection, the Hawk bullies appeared to be honing in on him. They had gathered rather quickly, which transport was serving as the flag ship. During the war, he had made it a point to whack the officers as quickly as possible. Alan Carter, open thy mouth, and prepare to swallow. Behold--your own rancid medicine. "Sweetheart, give my regards to every one. Especially, the little guy."

The pilot lowered his visor, feeling the yoke slip away as Graham took over the navigational controls. The CGI Target Display showed three bogies--low, and slow. Still ten kilometers away, but already firing their fusion cannons. Hot death in the cold void.

"Flight Leader, to Flight One." Carter said to the other pilots on VOX. "Choose your opposite number, and put it to him. If any of those ships get through, we won't have a home to go to." Flexing his gloved hands, he nodded to Graham. "Tommy, take us in."

Hawks G, H, and I dominated the veldt of space, predatory, humorless, unmerciful. The Ram Jet Ions had long ceased firing. They coasted forward--javelins looking for a set of heart, and lungs to impale.

Eagles One, Ten, and 15--together they formed the reassembled Flight One Strike Force. They gallantly transversed the distance, though they were way too slow. Tortoises belong in their shells, but death is no respecter of shells. They continued, unafraid of the purple planet's cruelty, of their incomprehensible, unnegotiable dislike for the Moon, and the inmates therein.

Hawks G, H, and I drew closer, wolves ready for a game of barn yard butchery.

Eagle Flight One became more, and more determined; martyrs, with a will that was not to be vitiated.

Faster than you can say "war sucks," they clashed.

Hawk-H immediately had Wolusky's Eagle for din-din. The weaker ship exploded, leaving behind fragments the size of thumb tacks. In Eagle 15--though he had declared that morning his acceptance of death--Pierre Danielle suddenly decided that what he really wanted to do was to live to be 110 years old. He pushed his eight ball nearly into the red, banking hard to starboard so fast that he nearly unhelmuted his gunner, William Gregory Harms III. Hawk-G duplicated the move, firing its micro-nukes at his engine assembly. Harms cussed him out, and admonished his pilot to keep the controls steady while he was targeting.

"Are you kidding?" Pierre Danielle said incredulously.

Hawk-G made a considerable, irrefutable blunder by crossing the axis of fire, rather than remaining on the fringes. Too bad, because Alan Carter was waiting with his right index finger poised over the cutting beam. The enemy bird was consumed in its own fuel conflagration. Aboard Eagle 15, Harms grinned like a Massachusetts Republican when Hawk-I ended up buck naked in his co-axial crosshairs. He used the atomizing beam, which was ill-advised. The opposing gun ship was destroyed, but it took them with it. So, what was the use? Harms kicked himself in the glutes repeatedly. He was encouraged to do this by Pierre Danielle as their Eagle spiraled into the open palms of chaos, and destruction.

Six little Indians, and then there was Carter, and Graham. The only extant Eagle in Flight One jousted with Hawk-H. Carter watched his opposite number weave in, and out of scope. He had a sobering moment where he felt sure they were going to the pearly gates. Then, Hawk-H seemed to grow uncertain. The effect only lasted .00000001 of a second, but it was long enough for the evasive maneuver to lull them into point blank range.

Bon voyage, you creepy fuckers. Carter bade, and introduced Hawk-H to his C-Beam. The resulting weld unperched the hungry Hawk, and spilled its metal form intestines, all over the lunar surface. All except for a z-shaped chunk of titanium from its fore peak, which collided with Eagle One.

"!!!We're hit!!!" Carter bellowed into his helmet mike, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory; riding a bronco with Mad Cow's disease instead of a triumphant chariot. "!!!Reduce power!!!" He said, shutting down the plasma drive while Graham released the control arms like a pair of hot potatoes.

Eagle One was now adrift in hostile space.

"We're sitting ducks." Graham observed. His depression showed no signs of lifting.

"Let's hope they take us for a dead one." Carter said, lifting his visor up. After he killed the breakers, the cockpit was black as pitch.

*****

Angelina watched as Eagle 10 disappeared off the capcomm station monitor screen, followed by one of the Hawk blips blanking out. Likewise, she watched the blip for Eagle 15 spiraling across the screen then finally off the screen, as another Hawk disappeared into oblivion. Sensors confirmed that Eagle 15 crash landed on the lunar surface about 100 miles from Alpha. The distress beacon for Eagle 15 had been activated but Angelina found she could not respond; for the moment, anyway, Pilots Danielle and Harms were on their own, if they were both still alive.

She watched tensely as the remaining Hawk closed in on the Eagle 1 blip. The split second of elation as the Hawk blip disappeared forever from the screen was replaced with anxiety when she heard Carter call out "We've been hit!!!".

The static over the speakers suddenly went dead. However, according to the locator beam, Eagle 1 had not been vaporized..yet.

"Eagle one, do you copy?" Angelina called, fear creeping in her voice.

No response.

"Eagle one, this is Alpha, please acknowledge!" Angelina called again. 'Oh, please, please God, let them be alive' she thought to herself.

No response.

Sensors were useless in confirming life signs. Only the locator beacon emitted its intermittent blips from the ship.

"Eagle One, this is Alpha, please acknowledge. Alan, are you alright? Send me any kind of signal if you can." Over and over again, in one variation or another. Angelina felt sick; she thought she was going to throw up.

As she sank into despair, yet still holding on to a glimmer of hope, she saw another blip on the sensor. Like the others, it too appeared out of nowhere. Angelina trained the remaining camera on it.

Angelina was suddenly terrified, like she had never been terrified before, as she stared at the image on the big screen.

The single ship on the screen was huge, no, more than huge. Great javelin looking projections reached out from the main section of a ship, which resembled the body of a reptile, scales and all. The end section of the ship had 10 large engine bells and an ominous triangular projection from the back. The belly of the ship appear bloated. The doors of the ship bottom opened to reveal several large cylindrical tubes. The ship was escorted by two Hawks which were dwarfed in comparison to the ship...they looked like a couple of ants next to the mammoth menace, as it crept slowly toward Alpha.

Commander Koenig strode into Main Mission to see her staring, in shock at the big screen.

"C-Commander?" Ang whispered and pointed...just pointed. The message was plain in her eyes...'We've had it...game over'

"Well, well.." Commander Koenig had come around next to her and was also staring at the big screen. "They're going by the book. First they take out the defenses. Then they bring in the bombers."

Angelina was numb but suddenly felt the Commander's arm around her shoulder. "There's nothing we can do," Koenig stated softly.

*****

Eagle One was now almost a kilometer from it's original fake-out/ damage position. The ship drifted backwards slowly, listing gently in the cosmic eddies. Debris from that last Hawk orbited the hull in an angel glow of hydrogen, and metal fibers. Tom Graham sat in the dark, trying to multiply 375, by a fact of 5 on his pocket calculator, but it was solar powered, and the "X" sign never did work very well. He heard Alan Carter whistle as the dreadnought moved past them. A mile away, and it still filled the angled viewports. It's shell plating caused serpentine shadows to dance across Graham's right arm, and inner airlock door.

"Any way, it's bigger than a football field." The co-pilot said, disgustedly. He abandoned his calculator, though he had only had it for a month. "At least five hundred meters."

"Yeah, and Alpha only has one laser equipped Eagle left." Carter said, noting that the vessel was moving in with its bomb bay doors already open. The Hawk pilots were either cocky, and did not care that they were there, or they simply hadn't noticed. "That's if they can get it off the ground.

"Tommy, some how this one's down to us."

The bomber's hyper-geometric stern at last moved out of range. It had taken a total of fifteen minutes; a long, long wait to cross the railroad tracks. It left in it's wake a fusion jet spray that caused the free floating shards, and chemicals to spiral around their viewports like whirling dervishes.

"Alright, let's do it." Carter said, lowering his visor. "Head up the target display, and give me all the power you've got."

Eagle One bucked, and protested as the Main Motors were brought back on-line. Gallons of nitrozine, and tetroxide were added to the surrounding halo from the transport's damaged fuel assembly. Could the alien war ship be disabled, from this attitude, and from this range, was a question. How the Hawks would respond to sniper activity, certainly was a question. Would Eagle One blow itself to bits in the course of this philanthropistic, self-sacrificing gesture? That was actually a more relevant query than either the latter, or the former.

"!!!Try, and hold her steady!!!" Carter shouted, doubting seriously that Graham could hear him over the honked off gorgon that was tearing apart their service module. The pilot rode the pogo stick, his tongue doing the blub-blub-blub thing whenever he redirected Graham.

The grates covering the battle ship's propellant tanks drifted in, and out of the metric cross-hairs. The target moved further, and further out with each with each passing second. One of the vessel's lower antennae complexes appeared again briefly beneath the left grid. It looked like an upside down toad's stool.

"!!!Come on!!!"

Seconds past, and then the toad stool bobbed back into the right, East/West Grid.

"!!!COME ON!!!"

The bomber fired it's bow thrusters, slowing itself for trans-lunar insertion--a complex equation in physics that was apparently no sweat/ no strain to their on-board computers. A revolution was plotted--one that would eventually carry it within range of Moonbase Alpha. This final burn also placed it within the killing zone of Carter's targeting computer. He fired the flame thrower this time. The Heat Beam glinted in the night, striking the war ship's reactor head on.

Eagle One's pilot, and co-pilot shielded their eyes as a new star was born.

*****

Commander Koenig and Angelina Verdeschi in Main Mission were blinded and suddenly hurled to the floor from the shockwave of the explosion. Angelina went flying against Koenig and they skidded across the floor, stopping just short of the stairs on the left side of Morrow's desk.

"Are you OK?" Koenig asked, pulling Angelina up to a standing position. Angelina was more than elated; the destruction of the massive bomber could mean only one thing. The pilots of Eagle 1 were alive.

Ang nodded as Koenig ordered, "Ang, take computer. Quick status on our situation and find a replacement for Ben Ouma."

"Alpha to Eagle 1. Alan, that was terrific!" Koenig sighed with relief.

The pilots were almost totally cut off, visually. The Moon was somewhere beneath the 99.9 percent haze. Graham had to boost their transponders in order to transform an incoherent message into one that was kind of, sort of audible. A word, or two gave Carter the gist of it; the base was still there.

"It was the big one." He agreed. The ship was now drifting through highly radiated, blast residue. Temperatures varied somewhere between six, and 6,00 degrees Kelvin, and right now, Eagle One was in the shade. "I'd say it had Alpha's name on it."

"I'm sure it did." Koenig replied, his visual image losing its resolution in the post atomic flux.

"How are things there."

"Bad." The commander said simply as the command module reclined at a forty-five degree angle. Graham's unloved calculator fell from the console, and landed back in its owners lap. Regardless of the danger to life, and limb, they were going to have to do a course correction soon, or end up doing cart wheels. "Can you make it back to the base."

"I can coax her a little." Carter had no idea. "What do you think they have planned next."

Graham's right ear expanded to twice it's normal, nosy size, as he waited for the commander's educated response.

"We have no idea. We're relying on you to tell us, Alan." John Koenig felt like a moron today. The sentiment was all over the base. Many were getting a two-for-one deal, as they felt like dead morons. In the hierarchy of problems, lack of respiration was the ultimate, to-be-pitied hassle.

Carter took the yoke, and brought the engines back on one quarter power. It still felt like they were riding the massage pad from hell, but the idea of a safe landing didn't seem as hilarious as it had ten minutes before. The navigational hardware lay smashed somewhere beneath Graham's boots, but the pilot was able to draft a return trajectory using the tubes of smoke as a reference point. It was a formula invented by Leonardo Da Vinci. Whether he had conceived the idea before--or after--cutting off his ear, and sending it to the woman he loved, Carter had no idea.

Before long, the functionally challenged Eagle--now black in color--emerged from the morning glory of radiation, and descended, towards 'Ang, and the obliterated Hiroshima that was Moonbase Alpha.

*****

Angelina smiled broadly as she listened to the exchange. It was nothing short of a miracle that they survived.

Koenig keyed the internal communications code to the underground shelters. "Victor? How is everything down there?"

Bergman's face appeared on the right monitor, the only intact monitor, under the big screen. "Oh, yes, we're alright down here. What was that explosion?"

"It was their doomsday weapon and Alan got in its way."

"Alan?!? Is he..."

"Yes, he's alright," Koenig replied. "Alpha's in tough shape, Victor. Come on up here and we will have a Command Conference as soon as Alan gets back, in 1 hour. Angelina will give you a safe route. Ang?" Koenig looked to her.

Angelina would have turned the computer station toward Koenig but the motor had failed on the turntable.

"Corridor 33 to travel tube 2. Take Corridor 8. From there, gain access to Main Mission from the Commander's Office." Angelina reported.

The issue of a replacement for an injured Ben Ouma needed to be addressed. Angelina sadly noted that Julio Armondo, swept out into space during the first round of the attack from explosive decompression, would have been the natural backup for the job. Angelina was pondering who to get as a temporary replacement for Benjamin when the compost paged her.

"Danny Chan, here." The young information specialist's face appeared on the monitor. Angelina remembered Chan's name mentioned by Ouma with high praise.

"Yes, Danny?"

"Ma'am, I just wanted to report that central computer is offline but we will be working on getting it up again. We do have life support control. I estimate approximately 6 hours for limited service for all other functions, depending on the power situation." Chan replied with a sigh.

"Thank you, Danny," Angelina smiled warmly at the computer tech, despite the direness of the present situation. She was impressed with his initiative. "You don't have to call me 'Ma'am', Danny," Angelina smirked. "I'm not THAT much older than you. 'Angelina' will do just fine." The young technician nodded and smiled, despite the apparent stress of his situation.

"Danny, when you have things under control, I need you to report to Main Mission to take over the computer desk. Ben was injured and I really need someone up here to monitor computer operations. When can I expect you up here?"

"Is an hour OK?" Chan asked.

Angelina nodded, Chan gave the thumbs up and she cut the link. Angelina had perhaps a 10 second chance to get her breath when the damage reports started to pour in and the Main Mission staff began trickling in, taking their stations as well.

*****

Joe Erhlich surveyed the remains of Reactor Area 1. As least this area had a breathable atmosphere. The other two reactors were also disabled, with Reactor #3 appearing to be hopelessly smashed. A closer inspection would be required in EVA suits.

Joe was not looking for to this activity, especially going into Reactor Area #2. Reactor Area #3 had been evacuate before being destroyed but Reactor Area #1 still had George Crato and a number of technicians inside when the structure breech created by a piece of a Hawk carcass resulted in explosive decompression.

Erhlich looked over to Carter Jackson who was ruefully examining the remains of the main coolant transformers. Joan Conway was up on the mezzanine, shaking her head, studying the damaged breakers.

'What's the use?' Joe thought to himself. 'We would have been better off killed off by those purple planet assholes right off.' The thought of death by slow suffocation made him shudder with anxiety.

After briefly hearing the bad news from Joan and Carter, he watched them turn back to their tasks; they were not going to give up despite the 1000 to 1 odds against them.

"I'll be back soon," Joe said, turning toward the alternate exit. Normally, it was only about a 5 minute trip to Main Mission. Now, of course, Joe would not be able to take elevators, travel tubes or even main routes. He had to take maintenance access corridors and ladder to Main Mission, where his supervisor, Angelina Verdeschi, would be waiting for the news she probably already figured would be devastating and bleak

*****

High atop the balcony in Main Mission, Ed Malcom was missing the chuck key to his screw gun, and he knew who took it, and the resentment was seething, bubbling--overflowing the pot like a quantity of possum stew. With the purple planet framed above them, they had just finished removing a deformed dog house casing to clean out the densely filthy, nasty air scrubbers. It was Profitt's job, but Malcom had agreed to assist, but only under extreme protest. He was just that kind of guy.

"You're fucked in the head, Ed." The other technician chuckled while carefully removing the cylinder. Black dust drifted to the floor, and onto Malcom's clean, tan flares. There was something about him; the beam in his eye; his ice tray professionalism; the welsh accent. He thought he knew everything, Ed Malcom decided. "If you were truly worried about that drill, you would have charged the battery."

Marcus Profitt was glad that he had thought to bring the ratchet set along. The day had been unequivocally bad. Murphy's Law had declared war on them, and it had no intention of quartering prisoners.

"The battery was charged." Malcom replied calmly, grinding his fat-boy, tombstone teeth. "Some lazy asshole borrowed it yesterday, and didn't bother to place it back on the charger. They also lost my chuck key.

"???Now, who could that have been???"

"I used it yesterday." Profitt admitted, simultaneously hoisting the Jolly Roger, and blowing grime at Deadhead Ed. He would have felt more sympathy; he would have pitied Ed Malcom--hugely overweight, and with filter dust in his face, but metaphysically speaking, they were now in the valley of the shadow of death, and he just didn't give a shit. Add to that, the fact that he, and everyone else for that matter, had long since grown weary of picking up the slack for The Hindenberg, smelling his bad breath, listening to his endless profusion of corny puns. Angelina Verdeschi either didn't care about their plight, or she was just being loyal to the Society Of All Blonde Bimbettes.

"Do something about it, then." Profitt grinned. "Cross the line, Fred."

Ed Malcom advanced on him with his red knuckled fists already clenched.

Angelina was reviewing the incessant flow of data from computer with Daniel Chan when she heard the "B-O-O-M" above.

For a split second, she thought the occupants of the purple planet had renewed their barrage. She was wrong; Ed Malcom's enormous girth had landed hard against the balcony floor. She looked up and saw the continuing scuffle between Marcus Profitt and Ed Malcom.

Angelina bounded up the balcony steps, followed closely by Danny Chan. Ed Malcom was shrieking, a river of blood issued from his nose, as he was lunging at Profitt. He missed and Profitt responded by giving Ed a shiner to his left eye. As Ed tried to swing at Profitt, who was again drawing back his fist, Angelina stepped dead center into the dog fight. She grabbed each of them by the tunics and in one motion, shoved them both apart in opposite directions, as Ed lost his balance and slammed into the wall.

"!! WHAT IN THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?!?!?!?!!!!!"

Angelina Verdeschi was clearly angry. She knew of course what was wrong. All 3 nuclear reactors were severely damaged and unless the Lord above granted them a miracle, they would all be dead in 18 days. It was not common knowledge yet but, being in technical,

Profitt and Malcom had their own internal sources.

She narrowed her eyes, looking back and forth between a crying Malcom and an expressionless Profitt. Andy Dempsey had just reached the top of the balcony stairs.

"WELL?!?!?!" Angelina prompted, "Speak up!"

!!!He stole my drill!!!" Malcom exploded. The fact that he was shaking the drill at Profitt as he spoke, apparently unnoticed.

"Right, you daft block head." Profitt retorted. His Somerset brogue made him sound like an angry Scot. "Let's face it--you had no intentions of coming to work today, but certain factors forced you to haul that balloon ass off the couch, didn't they, Ed."

"Enough!" Angelina stated firmly. Then she turned her attention to Ed. "YOUR drill, Ed?!? That drill is the property of Technical section and the last department personnel roster lists Marcus as part of Technical and therefore entitled to use the drill as necessary."

Ed Malcom's head was beginning to look like a battered Italian sausage.

"Get to Medical and fix your face," Angelina directed, taking the drill from his hand.

"Idon'tgetanyofyoumydrillmychuckkeyniceguysjustfinishlastthat'swhatitis."

Ed Malcom mumbled under his breath as he lumbered down the stairs.

Mark Winters was leaning against the controllers desk as the Dumbo came in for a landing. The deputy's arms were folded, and he had a sadistic, shit-eating grin on his face. He had so enjoyed the show, he had not even bothered to call security. His overnight, orange-sleeved second, Klaus Rotstein savored the brawl with comparable oeuvre. The Saxon malcontent slapped his chummy boss on the back, and pointed out that Malcom had managed to split his pants during the course of the fight too. Tanya Alexander came up from the maintenance panel beneath the desk, and looked on both of them with cold disgust.

Angelina turned to Marcus Profitt. "There are not many of us left, Marcus. We need everyone, including Ed," her tone softened, as she handed him the drill.

"Of course." The other technician said. Extreme guilt had set in, and it was having a calming effect on him. He regretted blowing furnace dust in Ed Malcom's face.

"Professor Bergman and I have been discussing some options regarding the power situation. The game is not over yet. Don't lose hope." Angelina told him, reassuringly. Of course, she was hiding her own doubts. The options they had talked about were theoretical in nature, the stuff of pontificating professors in the halls of universities.

Profitt hung his head low. As he nodded, his chin bobbed against the tip of his tunic. He quickly reset the air scrubber, and exited the balcony. He contritely returned two of the futurama plastic chairs to the upright position again, and returned to his tower of work orders on the cart below. Winters, and Rotstein messed with him behind his back, of course, as he left. Angelina Verdeschi never saw the excellent, NC-17 puppet show that the controller, and his assistant were enacting with their hands. They ceased, and desisted the minute she looked over the rail. They immediately reverted back to pillars of seriousness, except for a smug upturning of the lips.

*****

Pierre Danielle had a beef too, but currently, his universe was so constricting that venting his frustrations was unrealistic. Ten kilometers behind them, the remains of their Eagle sat like a crushed beer can, half-in, and half-out of a the crater wall. The evacuation had been smooth, though the pilot had made the mistake of not aligning his helmet properly before clamping the seals. As a result, he looked like a voyeur, peering over the fence for his jollies. The commlock locator beams were on, so theoretically, finding the base should have been no problem.

Unless, it no longer existed. A distinct possibility.

"By the time I got around to G. Gordon Liddy, I had a deep throat informant warn me not to continue my quest for the truth." William Gregory Harms III stated matter-of-factly. "He told me this in a tone of voice that made you listen up, Big-P. Then again, he may also have been frustrated because his bathroom dispenser was jammed."

"Harms, your not a bit of a liar, and a bullshitter are you?" Pierre Danielle attempted to liberate his neck from the o-ring that was galling him. Since the beginning of their hike, it had been one fantastic story after the next. Currently, the other pilot was telling him about his involvement in the search for the men who killed Jack Kennedy. His statements were conspicuously void of fact, and the dates didn't jibe very well either. "You realize of course that if what you're saying is true, you would have been a two year old FBI Agent.

"Now, that's impossible."

"Well, I know it looks that way, until you take into account the years I spent developing a war time pharmacopoeia for the United Nations. Experimental drugs. Revolutionary anti-aging formulas. I'm much older than I look, Big-P."

Whenever the pilot attempted to opine, or modulate on what Harms was saying, he was cut off briefly, and his insertions were deemed layman nonsense. Like Malcom, and Profitt before him--having had enough, and unable to tolerate any more of Harms' stories, Pierre Danielle threw a punch. It was neutralized, and sissified in the 1/8 lunar gravity however. Not only did the other pilot see it coming, he interpreted the gesture as one of camaraderie. It ended in Danielle giving Harms a high five, when what he really wanted to do was knock him on his ass.

"You look stressed out, Big-P. Do you have to use the can? You can do it in these suits you know. It has a cooling effect, and the life support sub systems will recycle it into drinkable water." Harms considered recommending Gaba Gaba Root. Hydroponics section never really used it for any thing, and it was great for elevating one's mood, and as a release for morbid constipation. "You want me to carry the commlock for a while. I used to be a planesman aboard a submarine, too. Did I ever tell you that."

"No." Danielle said, checking the pedometer on his wrist. They still had a hundred kilometers to go. William Gregory Harms III would rather talk than breath, or so it seemed. As the walk continued, the colorful pilot continued his infinite digressions on G. Gordon Liddy, and Guy Bannister, and Clay Shaw--all of them shrank in fear, and trepidation the minute Harms pulled out his steno pad. Oswald could not have recycled a bolt action Carcano Rifle in the time allotted to fire the killing shot at Kennedy.

Pierre Danielle--on the other hand--wished that he had a Carcano Rifle to stick in his own mouth. The journey continued.

*****

Angelina was in a bad mood as she hurried down the balcony stairs in Main Mission. She gave Mark Winters an irritated look and was heading toward him when she spied Pierce Quinton strolling into Main Mission under the right archway. Why security had not shown up or was even present to break up the fight between Profitt and Malcom was a question to which she wanted an answer.

"I want a word with you," she told him, pointing back in the direction she came, back into the corridor. Quinton complied because he was shocked; his past interactions with Angelina Verdeschi had always been pleasant.

Quinton also became annoyed as they entered the corridor. He had taken a great deal of crap from his former boss, her brother, the late Antonio Verdeschi for years. He was not about to take any bull from little sister Verdeschi.

"What do you want?" Quinton asked gruffly. "I need to make a report to the Commander.." Quinton had lost several of his men to explosive decompression, not to mention the fact that he had already pulled a double before the attack.

Angelina ignored his tone. "I just broke up a fight between Marcus Profitt and Ed Malcom in Main Mission. Pierce, where was security? Where IS security in Main Mission?"

"A fight between Profitt and Malcom? Hah! It must have been short and decisive: in Profitt's favor," Pierce Quinton smirked. Like many people on Alpha, he was often annoyed by Malcom and secretly would have loved to ditch him. "Too bad I missed the show."

"What?!?!" Angelina blurted in dismay. "What the hell?!? Look, we all have jobs to do around here and since I am limited in the number of technical folks, I would appreciate it if you would do your job and keep our people from killing each other!"

"Then some of us die just a few days short of the 18 days the rest of us got!!!!" Quinton yelled in her face.

"Is there a problem?" Commander Koenig seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.

Quinton immediately lowered his head. "Uh, no sir, none at all. I was just coming to see you to give my report."

Angelina, eyes downcast, slowly shook her head.

"Good," Koenig replied. "As managers, it is our job to set a positive example and work together as effectively as possible, "he continued, eyeing them both.

"Quinton, come with me, " Koenig motioned and they headed back into Main Mission toward the Commander's office.

Angelina leaned against the wall and stared up at the ceiling, fixating on a dangling mass of network cables.

*****

One hour later, in the corridor about 100 yards outside the Commander's office, Angelina Verdeschi leaned against one of the many cracked light panels in the near darkness as members of her three departments briefed her on the status of Moonbase Alpha. The red glow of the emergency lights only exaggerated the dark and depressing demeanor of her 3 managers.

Joe Erhlich gave the mournful news on the power situation. It was bleak...it was bad...it was hopeless, as Angelina wrote down the details. Her expression was neutral, trying not to convey the feeling of defeat that was ballooning inside her with each enunciated detail.

Peter Garforth was next; his report on the situation in electronics instrumentation, though not as bad as power, was depressing. How do we even begin to "fix" anything when at least half of the tools and equipment used to "fix" are damaged themselves?

Patrick Osgood would have been up next, had he still been alive. Osgood and several manufacturing techs were sucked out into space when Manufacturing A suffered a breach then a collapse. Unfortunately, that area housed where most of the PCB assemblies were manufactured. Reporting in his place was Michelle Cranston, a petite Manufacturing Engineer but certainly not what one would call defeated and helpless. With everyone else in a depressed funk over the catastrophic situation on Alpha, Michelle Cranston was extremely ticked off at the aliens on the purple planet.

"Those pricks destroyed my whole fucking manufacturing complex and killed most of my crew!" Michelle steamed, tapping her foot. "When do we hit them back?"

"We don't for now, Michelle, we can't" Angelina answered a little perturbed. "You focus on setting up the prototype area to make boards, OK?"

Michelle looked down, reigning in her temper. "Sorry, boss, it's just.." she looked away.

"I understand," Ang affirmed. "We all do. Since power is our first priority, start working on the converter boards first." She smiled to be reassuring. "We'll get through this," she said as they left, making their way down the dark corridor though the debris and cables hanging from the ceiling. They did not answer her.

Angelina, alone, covered her eyes with her hand and sighed; it was hopeless. If there was going to be a time to let it out and cry, this was it. The tears, however, refused to come. It was just as well, as she heard a sound.

She went completely mute as Captain Alan Carter, stepping over a shattered light fixture, rounded the corner and suddenly found himself face to face with her.

Angelina thought of what could be described as their first "date". Still working in the power generation area, she would occasionally be sent to the hangars to initiate the newly compressed hydrogen. Actually, it was becoming more than occasionally since she began volunteering for the task more and more. It wasn't that she got a kick out of initiating compressed hydrogen tanks; it was who she would meet up with quite frequently that was of more interest to her. So, when Alan Carter asked her to take a break with him in the tiny Reconn snack room, she accepted, and a 20 minute break became over 60 minutes. During a fit of laughter, he spilled C-Total all over his tunic. Amused, Angelina helped him clean up. The effort of spot removal led to a moment when he took her hand and they gazed into each other's eyes. He leaned toward her to kiss her when....Pierre Danielle rounded the corner into the break room with a cheerful, 'What's up, guys?'

Ang smirked and immediately pull away, leaving with a 'See you later, Captain.' Carter glared momentarily at Pierre Danielle. "Big P" looked like he was about to be read a death sentence.

With words still choked in her throat, Angelina bolted the 8 or 10 steps to Carter and embraced him tightly, dropping her clipboard and notes in the process.

Carter wrapped arms around her that no Hawk on the purple planet could sever. The feeling of her cheek against his, her lips against his. His gratitude shook the ruler at him, reminding him always of just how close they had come to being separated for keeps. He arrived from Hangar Bay Three. Taking off from the garage had been a virtue. Landing in the garage was a necessity. Volunteers had managed to lower the platform by draining the hydraulics. There was no elevator, and there probably would be no elevator for some time to come. No elevator, no travel tube, not even a ready room. He unsuited in Corridor-M, before the stairwell leading up to the command tower. Before lifting off, the berth was filled with flight controllers, and technicians that he had worked with for years. Upon returning, there were no familiar faces--only a colloquy of random, unrelated personnel who had done their best to bring him in. Even in a situation like this, Gordon Cooper, and Tom Fitzpatrick would have met him at the airlock for the debriefing. This time, however, he and Graham walked away from Eagle One alone-there wasn't even a radiologist present to decontaminate them. The normal egress from Launch Pad Three, Corridor-C, was sealed behind the huge secondary bulkhead doors. Velma Hill, and Truman Strains stood solemn watch at this all too symbolic dead end, redirecting personnel to the remaining, functional areas of the base. He had to take the maintenance ladder one level up, to Corridor-H before he could find a safe exit.

"God, it's good to see you." He told the woman he loved while the remains of Moonbase Alpha settled all around them.

"Welcome back, Captain," Angelina congratulated kissed him tenderly again. She felt the tears forming in her eyes but held them back. She wanted to stay safe in his arms forever. Time, however, was marching on and not to their advantage. The situation with the power was bleak and they had 18 days worth of solar batteries....then....nothing. Carter nodded and smiled when she told him their son was OK, safe in the shelters below.

Reluctantly she let him go and gathered her notes. They silently traversed the short distance to the Commander's office. The mood inside was depressing yet sobering. Dr. Helena Russell was at the compost taking a report from Dr. Mathias; he was updating her on the casualty numbers and requesting more power. Sandra Benes and Paul Morrow were silently clearing away debris from the conference table and picking up chairs. Professor Bergman stared pensively out the view ports at the purple planet.

When Angelina Verdeschi and Alan Carter walked in, Koenig stepped down from his desk platform and motioned everyone to take a seat. Commander Koenig studied the exhausted and defeated faces before him, finally focusing in on Dr. Russell.

"Alright, Helena," Koenig began. "You first. Let's hear the bad news."

"The death tolls are still coming in." Russell explained. It was her first unpopular statement, but certainly not her last. "One hundred, and twenty-three people dead. Most of them were in crews assigned to launch pad areas." She reported, clearing away more of the plaster dust with the ball of her hand. "Mostly there's no trace of them...explosive decompression. Those who made it down to the shelters are pretty much alright. Those who didn't...." She trailed away, while making a clean spot for herself in the seat. "There's just no half-way about it."

Carter nodded, the air about him rife with horror, and dreams, and a surreal aspect that made green, box headed aliens from Mars seem cogent.

"Yeah...I watched four of them go myself." The pilot offered, now that the luxury of grief was affordable to him again. "There were four more after that. We have two pilots missing. I have no idea where they are, or what's become of them.

"Ten of our laser equipped Eagles were destroyed. Eagle One was badly damaged. We estimate that she'll be in dock for at least a month before it's okay to take her out again."

"It gets even better." Paul Morrow said, wondering if the over head klenco unit was going to collapse on him, or just hang askew. "Three of our launch pads are out of service. In all three cases, the platforms, and the lifters were simply blown away. The two emergency landing sites were also strafed. The hangar areas were compromised.

"The Experimental Laboratory is gone; Residence Building-B is gone. The security wing, and parts of medical center--intensive care, and the pharmacology labs, respectively--gone. There has been massive damage to the infrastructure of the base--particularly in maintenance, and services. Scanners, and sensors will be off-line for at least a week.

"Communications are still possible, but mostly on the short range frequency band. There's been no attempt from either the inner planet, or the outer planet to contact us. It seems their minds were made up the minute they saw us. Bad first impression, I suppose."

Sandra Benes, the Director of Services, cleared her throat as she organized her notes. "Hydroponics farm #1 has been destroyed and farm #2 has been severely damaged. Farm #3 is damaged but should be back in production in two weeks. Two of the protein synthesis units are damaged with repairs estimated from 6-8 weeks. The other protein synthesis unit is not as damaged but it will still take approximately 3-4 weeks to repair. We do have enough food in supply," Sandra paused mournfully," for the number of people left on the base, but we will have to ration."

She sat back, tapping her pen on her report. "Of most concern, however, is that our water recycling units have been damaged. The time to repair the least damaged one is approximately one week, best estimate. We will have to ration water in the meantime

Angelina had gotten up and slowly walked around the table as the others were giving their reports. In the shadow of the commander's desk, she imagined the presence of the grim reaper; tall, foreboding, long cloak with a sickle in its bony hands....waiting...as more grains of sand fell to the bottom of the hourglass. When Sandra finished, there was a moment of silence. Angelina was staring out at the viewport at the battered remnants of launch pad #1.

"Ang," the commander prompted, rolling his pen between his thumb and index finger. "What's the situation with Technical?"

Angelina slowly turned around and faced the group.

"All reactors are down. Reactor #1 is smashed beyond repair. Reactor #3 will required at least a year to repair and bring up. Reactor #4 and #5 will take a minimum of six months to repair. Reactor #2 is the least damaged. However, it will take an estimated 2 weeks to repair and another 3 weeks after that to bring it back online. That is assuming 24-7 repair operation and full concentration from manufacturing to fabricate parts."

Angelina leaned back against the wall. "We have the problem that Manufacturing Area A was completely destroyed. There is the prototype plating area, which Michelle Cranston is working on getting online now. However, my biggest problem is the lack of trained people."

She sighed heavily, crossing her arms and looking away momentarily. "I lost at least 60 engineers and technicians, mostly in the manufacturing and power generation area. Carter Jackson, Joan Conway, Joe Erhlich and I are the only remaining nuclear engineers plus a handful of nuclear technicians."

"However, I'm not sure any of this matters," Ang stated dismally. "We have less than 18 days of solar batteries left until they are exhausted."

Every person in the room fell silent. They were all intelligent enough to figure out quickly that 5 weeks to fix one reactor was 35 days...and 35 days was longer than 18 days.

"Professor Bergman and I have been discussing some options to reduce the time required for repairs. Mostly theoretical and potentially dangerous...."Angelina trailed off. At this point there was nothing more she could say.

Alan Carter listened to this memorandum to the bitter end. The permanent ellipses at the end of 'Ang's report was not lost on him. The pressure build-up from closed emotional dampers caused the pilot's iron boilers to explode. Her last paragraph caused his pipes to burst--his gauges erupted in spouts of blistering steam while the needle calibrations headed straight into the red. He pounded his fist against crap, and more crap which accomplished johnson, other than sending a precipitous cloud of crap up from the table top, and into everyone's faces.

Victor Bergman acknowledged his queue, and approached, stage front. In his mind, the cameras were rolling on him; the sound man had positioned his poodle-looking microphone in the professor's face. He had been probing, and shoveling, and excavating his psyche for some silver lining. Some sign that the waters were receding.

"Ah," He began, lubricating his throat. "We shall be within range of this planet for only four more days. Beyond that, the nearest star system is at least ten months too far."

Judging by the gimlet, suicidal ideation that stamped itself across the command team's collective faces, Bergman decided this was not the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. He remembered his teaching days at MIT--a wry, but not altogether funny--adjunct professor had once given him a computer print out on The Politics Of Being Screwed. How horrendously unamusing it was that art so often imitates life. Porkus, The Almighty had indeed scattered Moonbase Alpha to the four winds. Terrible situation. The cosmos had given it's Final Exam--and they had flunked righteously. 'Ang's diatribe on experimental solutions for restarting the reactors was more cocktail party conversation than established Boolean Law. He had no idea how they were going to score a touch down with this one.

Disturbing, to say the least.

Alan Carter didn't need Telamon, or FOIL to help him connect the dots. Moonbase Alpha was out of the game, and nothing was going to change that. They were DOA; an offering to the anti-social gods of the purple planet, and there was nothing they could do about it. Well, actually, there was one thing they could do about it. Judgement had been passed, and their way of life was now ex nilo. On the other hand, humanity had its own toys, and a long, questionable history of using them. Rebuke from the mysterious planet orbiting Mu Cephei had been their down fall, their curse. However, they had their own curse--ready, willing, and all too able--in the lead protected silos beneath the leveled perimeter stations. In this sense, Carter could look out the viewport, and regard the binary world with the same empathy one would have for a serial killer who has been diagnosed as having Leukemia. They were dead also, but they were too cocky to realize it.

He waited until the end though to brook--what was to him--the most important topic.

Angelina was ready to offer the slim chance of their survival on Moonbase Alpha. She sat down again at the table and leaned forward on her elbows. "The main reason is will take 35 days to bring Reactor 2 back up is the amount of time it takes to initiate raw plutonium. To complete the repairs for the reactor itself, including fabricating the parts can be done in about 14 days. It will be a stretch but it can be done. However, it takes approximately 3 weeks to initiate the fuel and get the reaction going."

Angelina looked around making sure she wasn't losing everyone with the tech talk. "Remember the Alphearan wreck?" How could they not remember the wreck of the gargantuan ship discovered when they encountered the Conceit; Ang certainly did not forget that event.

"About 4 months ago, while Reconn crews were surveying the wreckage, we found some strange devices in what we think was the power generation area of the ship. One of them appears to be some sort of neutron accelerator. If we can figure out how it works and integrate it into our own system, it is possible, theoretically, to initiate the core in not weeks but days. However, it must be strictly controlled. If we make the plutonium too "rich", as it were, we could create a, uh, bomb."

"So when we throw the switch to start the reactor up," Paul interjected, "we could blow ourselves up."

Angelina glanced at Paul and nodded. "Yeah, that's sort of the idea, yes. But we'll do our best to make sure that doesn't happen.."

"!!!DO YOUR BEST?!?!!!!" Paul stood up, leaning forward on his knuckles toward her, the color of his ears nearly matched the flame red color of his sleeve. "Is that your plan? Just haphazardly make trial and error attempts to get this alien device to work and hope you don't kill us in the process?!?!? What the hell kind of plan is that?!?! We need a guarantee that..."

"!!!WAIT JUST A GODDAMN MINUTE!!!" Carter shouted, only inches from the controller's face. Paper work flew across the round table like refugees from an awry copying machine. Morrow's Damage Control Report soft landed in Helena Russell's lap. Glancing downward, she noticed the 92% threshold just beneath one of the dog-eared corners.

Slamming down the red flimsy and jumping up, Angelina launched her defense strike against Morrow.

"!!! I can't give you a fucking guarantee. We have to try it because we have noother choice!!! We are dead, Paul!!! Dead!!!! It's worth a try because we are dead in 18 days!! Capisce, amicio?!?!? Angelina's face was hot; she was so angry she would hardly see straight and was starting to shake. Mushroom clouds of plaster dust were billowing everywhere from the disturbed flimsy.

"Paul, 'Ang." Koenig advocated, stepping up to the table, he placed his right hand on Morrow's shoulder.

"That's not going to do us any good at all." Bergman said sympathetically.

Leaning back comfortably in his seat, his arms were folded calmly over his chest. "You can both hit the ceiling if you like, but eventually you'll have to come back down again. When you do, we'll still have the same problems, so you will have accomplished nothing."

"Alan." The commander said reasonably, and Carter returned to his dusty seat. Directly across from him, Helena Russell was attempting to cool 'Ang down. Morrow's report lay facedown in front of her.

Angelina felt Helena Russell's clawlike grip on her elbow, pulling her back into her seat. Head bowed, Angelina, now humbled, nodded silently. Since this little eruption now made two instances of losing control for her, she now felt like the ultimate hypocrite for chastising Ed Malcom and Marcus Profitt earlier. If she couldn't keep it together, how was she going to expect her people to maintain control?

Looking rather contrite she continued, "Paul's concern is valid. However, we have had the chance to play around with the unit since its discovery." Then looking directly at Paul. "I would give you a detailed plan on how we will proceed but frankly I do not have the resources or the time for paperwork. If you have specific questions, I will answer them for you." The effort of keeping her voice calm, even and without shaking was beginning to hurt Angelina's throat.

"Do what you can." Koenig said gently, regarding the smoke, and rubble that was gyrating through the execution haze outside. He tapped his pen against the table thrice considerately. "In the end--whatever we do, or don't do here--I'm afraid there's only one viable solution." He dropped his pen, ignoring it as it rolled away in a semi-circle. "Paul, I want you to put an unarmed Eagle on a functional launch pad.

"Helena, you and I are going down there."

As expected, this enterprise found less support than Standard Oil, and Ghonnoreah combined.

Morrow's stress runneth over. His bomb--not the one caused by riching Plutonium--had actually been defused. Placation had begun to set in, until he heard the commander's last statement. The old ticked off feeling returned, and his belief in irony, and stupidity found a new life.

Carter almost hammered the table again, but at the last minute, settled for an exhausted groan of disagreement, and flabbergastation.

"I rather thought they were trying to tell us to stay away." Bergman admitted, pointing over his shoulder to the lavender island beyond the view port.

Sandra and Ang stared at each other in utter disbelief.

"Commander," Angelina spoke first, "That's suicide! The professor is right. I mean, what do you hope to get accomplish?"

"If they wanted us to go down there, Commander," Sandra finished, "their invitation would have been a lot friendlier. It's madness to go there, sir!" Sandra's warm brown eyes turned dark and piercing.

"Madness." Carter said. "Yep, it sure is."

"Listen." Koenig said adamantly. "We're down to the point where we're praying for miracles. You want to know why the attack stopped? It's because they no longer need to bother. Alpha is dead. Now unless one of you has a better idea, the only course of action I can see is to go down there, meet them face to face on their own turf, and try to persuade them to talk."

No one had a better idea. Koenig stared at each one of them and they all looked away, vanquished, except for Carter. Carter would not be stared down and was about to accept the challenge.

Paul silently got up and headed to Main Mission to prepare the Eagle for Koenig's and Russell's reconnaissance to the purple planet, followed closely by Sandra. Helena Russell also went into Main Mission to communicate with Dr. Mathias for a status and casualty update. Professor Bergman told Angelina he would meet her in the Reactor 2 area in one hour and left out the side door.

During this time, Angelina was watching Carter. He was staring at Koenig, waiting for the opportunity to talk to him privately. He made no effort to leave the room. Koenig had walked up the steps and returned to his desk.

Angelina knew Carter well enough to see that a nasty confrontation was about to commence. She attempted to avert his potential political suicide by trying to get him to leave with her.

"Come with me and let's go see Nicky. Please?" She whispered.

"Can't." The pilot answered numbly. The Aussie in him pronounced the word as 'cahn't. "You go ahead though." He said, brightening. "I'll be along in a bit. Got some business to take care of."

From over 'Ang's shoulder, Koenig turned from his desk, his right eyebrow raised quizzically. He appeared to acknowledge that he was being stared at, and gave Carter a penetrating gaze of his own.

Like the incoming tide in the Bay of Fundy, Angelina clearly saw there was no way to stop him. "OK," she said, reluctantly, in a low voice.

With a nod toward the Commander as she left through the exit from his office, Angelina headed toward the shelters. She had not seen her son since the attack began and she would probably only have 30 minutes or so to interact with him. She would then go to Reactor #2 and begin the daunting task of attempting to make a miracle; resurrecting the dead reactor in less than 18 days instead of 35 days..

*****

Once upon a time, there was a breaker panel beneath Paul Morrow's desk. Adjacent to the phone lines, and cable modem floor brackets, it was concealed with a plate that was uniform to the industrial gray linoleum that covered Main Mission wall, to wall. It used to aggravate the controller, since on more than one occasion, he would shift, and his boot heel would accidentally flip the hatch into the upwards position. Of course, he would have to bend down to close it again, and when he did--particularly in the days since Breakaway--he would get a laser beam, acid reflux reaction. The breaker box was hooked to a main bus panel that was located beneath the capcomm station, and it was a secondary bulkhead power conduit. Routed to it was the big, Main Mission doors.

Back in the days when Anton Gorski was at the height of his political wheeling, and dealing, it was possible to accidentally cause the big doors to open. But that had been a boon, considering that commander's anemic ethos, and considering the absence of fresh air, and sunshine laws.

Thanks to the butchering, Nazi Regime on the purple planet, the doors were now idiot proof. For all of that, they would never be closed again. Ten strong men, and elbow grease. That's the only way you could still close them. Unless, Morrow mused sarcastically, 'Ang found something in the Alphearan Wreck that her on-the-cusp team could use to adapt the mechanism. Door knobs, for example. How very innovative.

The more he thought about it, the angrier he got.

The lack of closure also ensured that Alan Carter's voice would echo loud, and clear throughout the control center.

"You're considering an exodus from the base, aren't you?" The pilot asked John Koenig, while only a few feet away from the now vacant conference table.

Commander Koenig once again stood up and walked down the 3 steps to the conference table in the pit, now about 4 feet from Carter.

"Considering it? Most definitely. At this point, evacuation is our only option. You heard the reports, Captain. There is no other choice. Do you have any other suggestions?"

"No sir, I do not." The pilot replied, candidly hitching his thumbs over the rim of his belt. He had no other suggestions, mostly because they were up the creek, sans paddle. 'Ang was the best in her field. On Alpha, she was the only game in town. There was something to be said about inalienable truths, though. Most of the time, Carter's desktop locked up whenever a file was downloaded from the Map Room. They had a difficult enough time trying to get computers to talk to one another on Earth. It was nothing short of Providence that the Internet was ever made to work. Binary chips, and vacuum tubes did not lend themselves to cannibalization, and conformity. The chances of her succeeding in marrying alien technology to Alpha technology was regrettably laughable. "But the way you're handling this is wrong headed.

"The time for talking is over. It's been over."

The tension was so thick, you could seal ruptured Moonbase sections with it.

"I see," Koenig turned away dismissively and began heading back up the stairs. Turning back toward him while halfway up the steps, Koenig queried, "and what would you suggest as an alternative to 'talk'? Speak up, Carter, if you have a suggestion in mind."

Koenig was not in the frame of mind to get into it with Carter right now, considering the situation. He was using every ounce of control he had left to not throw him out; he should have left with Ang.

"You know exactly what I'd suggest as an alternative." The pilot said, well entrenched. He had a lot of anger, and no problem at all focusing it.

Koenig shook his head. "Now what the hell good will that do? Devastate the planet with the 11 remaining missiles and what does that buy Alpha?! Nothing...Absolutely nothing. Unless Victor and Ang can work a miracle, we'll still be dead in less than 18 days."

On the commstation behind Carter, one of the Alpha test pattern appeared, and disappeared like a fleeting thought of salvation. Bits of dry wall mud continued to escape the condemned modu-form ceiling panels. The low rider sofa--once white, but now blood red in the shadow of the emergency bulbs--continued to catch most of it. Then the discussion headed down an entrails smeared cemetery, with Carter wielding his saber, and warrior's shield over Moonbase Alpha's tombstone.

"I don't believe in miracles." The pilot decided. "If we go down there with our pants down--which is what you're suggesting, commander, then we're dead any way." Carter opined. "And personally, after what's happened here, I see no reason not to take a few of them with us. Petrov can have those birds primed, and ready to fly in less than fifteen minutes. If you declare Def-Con Four now, those bastards will be pushing up daisies by nightfall. I haven't seen any thing they've got that could stop it."

Koenig shook his head--firmly, and incontrovertibly, the answer was NO.

"Take out their most populated areas." Carter went on, and on, and on. "When they're on their knees, we can evacuate to the far side of the planet, and not have to 'freakin worry about a bunch of Hawks blowing our unarmed passenger Eagles out of the sky."

Koenig was now down the step and standing face to face, about 3 feet away from Carter. "Then what do you propose? We hit them, we land on the planet and you don't expect them to hit us again?! Do you honestly think all would be well and we would live happily ever after?!?"

Koenig did not allow him to answer. "Of course not! At some point, sooner or later, they would hit us again. We would have zero chance of ever calling a truce or establishing peace because we would certainly be labeled the aggressors!" Koenig wasn't sure why he was engaging Carter in this discussion.

"!!We're already labeled as the aggressors!!" Carter fortissimoed. "!!Christsake commander; no one sends Hawks on a diplomatic mission. !!Those ships had one thing in mind, and it wasn't talk!! They came to annihilate us, and I've got news for you--they succeeded!!

"!!!These guys play for keeps!!! !!!If we send our ships into an unsecured perimeter, they'll make mince meat of them!!! !!!!WE'VE GOT TO LAY DOWN A SUPRESSING STRIKE!!!!

The last statement was loud enough, and bodacious enough to draw notice from Paul Morrow, who was well out of conventional ear shot, on the operations level of Main Mission. Klaus Rotstein craned his nosey neck from his perch on the capcomm station. Best two out of three, Morrow thought disapprovingly, but crawled after the breaker again any way.

No luck. The rear of the auditorium was a wide stage for Carter's views, and contentions.

Koenig was beginning to become agitated. "Suppressing strike?!?! Are you that confident, Carter, that we will be successful in a suppressing strike?!? By hitting their major population centers and then attempting to force our way onto the planet, we will guarantee war, misery and hostility for years to come!! Think beyond tomorrow, Captain! Is that the kind of future you want for your son?!?"

"I want the same thing for all of us." The pilot announced. "A fighting chance. !!!GOING DOWN THERE WITH OUR PANTS UNZIPPED DOES NOT FULFILL MY DEFINITION OF THAT!!! It may be a bad hand, no matter what we pull, but if we die, at the very least, we'll die trying!!"

Koenig shook his head. "You're being unreasonable, Carter. The only way we can successfully achieve Operation Exodus is to go down there, meet them face to face and try to come to an understanding. Then, maybe then, we may have a chance of settling on the planet."

"I sincerely hope you're right." Carter replied quietly, giving the old tonsils a rest. "If you're not, the bloodiest massacre of all has yet to come."

With that, the pilot did an about face on blazing heels, and stormed through the carbon polluted air to the corridor exit. The crippled book shelf insert--standing, but only barely--finally collapsed, sending useless Anton Gorski trinkets all over the heat wizened, plastic chair, and the burned, and pitted floor tiles. One of the dubious thingamajigs was a cheap smelling tea light that was shaped like a four leaf clover. Carter left to prepare an Eagle for a diplomatic mission that didn't stand a snow ball's chance in hell. It was nice to know where they stood. He took with him his rage, but left behind a question that was bigger than the Moon could hold.

Commander Koenig turned up the stairs and sat in the high back imitation leather chair at his desk. In the near darkness, with the eerie glow of the red emergency lights, Koenig sat for at least 10 minutes, his right hand covering his eyes. Koenig stabbed at a com-panel button.

"Petrov," answered the tactical technician.

"Petrov, I want you to prepare two...no three of the birds in the silos for launch....on my order or Professor Bergman's order only." Koenig quietly commanded. In Koenig's mind, he may need the dreaded nukes for protection for his Reconn mission to the planet with Dr. Russell.

"Right, sir," Petrov signed off. He knew exactly the reference for the "birds in the silos" as he statused the 11 remaining warheads and picked his "candidates."

At that point, Dr. Helena Russell silently walked up to his desk. "I'm ready," was all she said.

Koenig stood up and they exchanged a momentary gaze. "We need to see Victor on the way to the Eagle."

Russell nodded and followed Koenig out through Main Mission.

*****

Dr. Helena Russell began the process of suiting up in an EVA suit in the passenger compartment of the unarmed Eagle 16. Hangar 4 under Launch Pad 4 was the only hangar area that was still pressurized, though the boarding tube was not functional. As the lift raised the Eagle to the surface, it suddenly stopped, half way up the shaft, and Helena Russell nearly lost her balance. Koenig caught her, preventing her from crashing into the bulkhead. Evidently the hydraulics for the platform were still in need of further repairs.

Helena followed Koenig silently into the Command module and took the co-pilots chair as Koenig prepared to launch Eagle 16, from the half down/half up launch platform.

"What do you think we'll find down there, John?" She broke the silence, nervously and unconsciously clenching and unclenching her gloved hands.

"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh," Koenig snickered, pulling his safety harness over his right shoulder. "Little bit of this; a little bit of that."

A little bit of death; a little bit of "NO." Wherever you went, war was war. Innocent people are slaughtered, senselessly, and for reasons far, and away from the political impetus that started it--and the winners are not the ones who need to worry about deposturing. The peace mission was less about Operation Exodus, and more about being able to say they tried. Even if their ship was blasted into sub-atomic bits.

The main motors powered up to an inexorable burn. Koenig punched the three white start-up switches to the right of the console, thereby bringing the navigational computer on-line. The scanner blip appeared automatically. Grasping the floor mounted handle, he pulled the lever to the MANUAL position. Moments later, the green light was given from Main Mission. The countdown clock reset itself at 00.00 as Morrow cleared them for launch.

"Ten seconds to lift-off, commander." The controller informed them. "RETRO, and PROCEDURES are go. Your HRT-Tanks are pressurized. Static charge compensated."

"Right." Koenig replied, taking up the yoke. "Let's do it. Paul, keep trying to contact the outer planet." He paused, and then, finding a grape of confidence on an uncertain branch. "Also, I want you to start hailing the inner planet."

Morrow hesitated.

"Yes sir." He said finally, and terminated the link.

He burned the keel thrusters for fifteen seconds. Eagle One Six lifted off from the sunken platform like a gold miner that was tired of digging. He spared Helena a glance, momentarily, watching the stars pass by her on the upward elevator ride. He also got a first hand look a one of the collapsed travel tube tunnels, and the mountain of carnage that used to be Corridor-M. Before long, the purple planet floated serenely into position--again outside of Helena's vision port, but Koenig pulled hard to starboard, aligning the world's terminator with the nose cone of the command module.

"Here we go." He said. The vertical ascent, slowing to a hover.

Koenig fired the main motors.

*****

In the Main Mission tower, Morrow repeated his call over and over and over again.

"This is Moonbase Alpha. We are people from the planet Earth. The ship approaching you now is unarmed. We ask that mercy be shown for the people remaining on this base......"

Danny Chan frowned at the computer station, discerning the plethora of software error messages generated by main computer, scrolling down the monitor. Captain Alan Carter, at the capcomm station monitoring the progress of Eagle 16, shook his head as Morrow started to sound like a broken record.

Sandra Benes was under a console attempting to effect a repair with Tanya Alexander when, an electric arc from a control circuit caused Tanya to rise up suddenly, whacking her head and cursing loudly.

Various other Main Mission Operatives were attempting repairs and clean ups under the direction of Andy Dempsey.

*****

In Eagle 16, Helena Russell sat in silence as she watched the purple planet get closer and closer and closer. The swirling clouds had a gray tinge and almost resembled pollution. It was not an attractive world. Helena had the feeling that its appearance was caused by an unnatural disaster. Once they reached the troposphere, the view did not get any better. It was truly a desolate world. Crossing the terminator from night into day did not make it better.

Suddenly the ship shuttered and Helena Russell was alarmed as John Koenig began to furiously push buttons and throw switches.

He was still trying to gain control of the ship five minutes later when planet fall occurred. At 50,000 feet, he actually shut down the drive system; the end result was that they kept right on descending. The vacuum of space disappeared, as did the stars. Eagle 16 was pulled down through one primitive shade of lavender after another, growing lighter as their altitude decreased. The command module was jarred again the moment contact with the atmosphere was made. Koenig released the yoke, and folded his arms casually over his chest. A picture is worth more than a 1,000 words. He regarded Helena Russell with a look that said it all. Some one, or some thing, had just replaced him as pilot.

"People of Earth, do not be afraid." A female voice announced redundantly over the intercom. Their mastery of the English Language was impeccable. It was cordial, but cool. Sensitive, but at the same time, having the timbre of one who feels comfortable sitting on a bucket of crushed ice. It reminded Koenig of the HAL-9000 computer from 2001: A Space Odyssey. "We have taken control of your vessel. Stand by to land."

Then the kilometers clicked by at breakneck speed. Eagle 16 was delivered through a black ribbon of clouds, with sulfur vapors rising upwards from the red, irradiating land forms in the east. Ecologically, the purple planet was a Greenpeace nightmare of out-of-control waste, and unrestraint. They were pulled over a dead sea of salt water, and unrefined oil deposits. By the time they began their final descent, a huge post-industrial continent rolled beneath them, with pockets of blue steam, exuenting from flaming smoke stacks. At 5,000 feet, they saw one factory after another. No sign of farm land, or even an area that could reasonably support crops. The buildings were Neo-Gothic in design--medieval fortresses, complete with ramparts, and crenellated walls; framed in yellow grass, and dead white shrubbery. Arching bridges, united with redstone, and pitch. Pollution blackened keeps with ovular stained glass windows, cranoogs, and adjacent tower houses. As their air speed was reduced, Koenig noticed that the structure they were being pulled towards looked a lot like the Notre Dame Cathedral on Earth.

There was no sign of pedestrians on the cobble stone streets. No people, no motor vehicles, no wildlife--not even fouls in the air.

Eagle 16 approached a raised, circular platform and Helena Russell surmised it was the launch pad. The landing area, however, was overrun with the yellow grass and white shrubbery. Needless to say, it looked like it hadn't been used in years, decades, even centuries. Eagle 16 hovered over the archaic landing area and its retros fired, lowering it on the platform.

The doors from the command module and service module to the passenger module slid open. Helena immediately went to the scanners.

"We won't need our helmets," she reported to Koenig. "Atmosphere is breathable but it is dense with pollutants: carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide. Here." Helena injected the Commander and then herself with a laser hypo. "This substance is rich in concentrated oxygen. We are not use to the level of pollutants in this atmosphere and they could make us sick, as in nauseous and light headed. This little boost will help our bodies with the sudden oxygen deprivation," she finished, patting his wrist reassuringly.

Koenig nodded, rolling back in the pilot's seat, flexing his muscle to get the hypo moving. A tainted ground fog--acrid, and lion shaped--rolled by the forepeak, causing a brown condensation to bleed from the view ports. The planet's atmosphere flooded the personnel areas. Helena was right. The air was breathable, but harsh. Catching a whiff of it, it reminded Koenig of hangar bay oil, and grease; nitrozine rocket fuel, and puddles of escaped coolant, half dried in some saturation compound. Grinders, reforming warped metal--emitting sparks, and the smell from hell.

He unclipped his laser as he, and Helena Russell made their way towards the gaping airlock. The scorched grass at the bottom of the steps was slippery with dew. Caught in the branches of the largest dead tree in the court yard, and over top a march of smoke stacks in the west, they could see the Moon, roiling in, and out of the unfiltered exhaust. Helena Russell's horror was note worthy. She stood beside what appeared to be a bird bath, cracked, and desiccated from a thousand seasons of chemical rain, snow, and thaw.

It gave futile, pathetic meaning to T.S. Eliot's definition of 'wasteland.'

Koenig approached one of the stone sculptures--a bearded, law giving humanoid male. He was holding a great book under his right forearm, and pointing towards the disintegrating sky with his left index finger. The companion sculpture that framed the opposite side of the promenade was almost identical, save for the fact that it appeared to be a female of the race, eyes militant, and severely shadowed to points on her granite cheeks. The ambassadors turned suddenly--both holding their lasers. The explosion could not have been half a kilometer away. Helena Russell pressed her right palm against her forehead, startled, and pained. Koenig heard a ringing in his ears. It could have been the enemy mine launching a sneak attack.

But more than likely, the noise came from activity in one of the factory complexes.

The two crossed a narrow bridge that dead ended in a tangle of vines. The wall of the cathedral, easily 700 feet high, was completely covered with bramble, and ancient blackberry creepers. Using his gloved hands, Koenig tore away the vines until he had unearthed the light source beneath. It was an open doorway--the wooden frame, and hinges rusted orange. The crystal knob was covered with algae. There was no apparent locking mechanism. The flag stones on the opposite side met unevenly like disagreeing continents. The stairwell to the mezzanine level was covered with leaves, crushed green milk balls, dirt, and broken twigs. He pulled Helena Russell inside as rain began to pelt the ground, turning to refinery steam, and then wafting back into the atmosphere.

They mounted to the central corridor, and moved forward in the shadow of the mammoth, over head ceiling fans. Dank, mildewed tapestries lined the walls on either side. The way was lit mostly by candelabras. Enough light to see, but predisposing them to avenues incomprehensible. The search ended in one of the brick, octagonal tower rooms. Before them was a wooden table, shaped like a crescent. Ten figures, seated side by side, scrutinized them emotionlessly. Koenig could barely discern their cheek bones, and mouth. He was about to give them up for dead when, slowly, they drew their hoods back.

Dr. Helena Russell was amazed; they even looked like medieval inquisitioners. Helena was also pondering the fact that she had not seen anything yet to suggest that the technology of the people of this planet could support space flight. Yet the Hawks came from this planet!

The ten figures, 5 males and 5 females, stared somberly at Koenig and Russell. After an uncomfortably long wait, an elderly female in the center of the group addressed them.

Her long gray hair was pulled back into a single braid. If she was from earth, it could have been guessed that she was well into her 80's. On the ring finger of her right hand, she wore a ring with a huge blood red, stone. She pointed her wizened right index finger at Koenig, the light from the candelabra dancing off the blood red stone ring.

"Speak Earthman." The cloaked elder in the center seat said robotically, her voice echoing through the stone cathedral. "State your case...."

"Why did you attack us." Koenig exclaimed, stepping forward into the garish arena of torches.

No response.

Helena Russell studied the chiseled