Content
s
Introduction 6
Part One — The Laguna Wars
The Nightmare Begins 8
The Forgotten Fleet 16
The First Clash 21
A Mysterious Liquid 25
A Clue 30
The Breakout 35
A Desperate Race 42
The Defence of Terra 45
The Final Victory? 54
Part Two - Conquest of Space
The Nimrodian Club 57
The Duel of Sisuphos Three 63
The Great Rebellion 64
Colonization: 72
Incident 1
Incident 2
The Pirate World 80
The Hunters of Asterion 90
The Terran Trade Authority
The TTA, formerly the World Trade Authority, was founded in 1999 AD as a subsidiary of the World Council, and charged with the task of administering global trading. Four years later the Commercial Technology Division of the World Community Research Council, together with its extensive manufacturing complex, was absorbed into the corporate structure.
During the long years of the Proxima Wars, the TTA was made responsible for military ordnance and manufacturing, most of which was accomplished through their own facilities. Following the formation of the Terran Federation in 2070 AD, the Authority became the central administrative body of the Federation as well as the main federal manufacturing center.
Subsidiary Offices and Institutions
The Federal Law Enforcement Authority. The Institute of Astronautics. The Institute of Medical Sciences. Interstellar Trade Directory and Data Control. Public Office of Information. The Research Council. The Settlement Welfare Service. Traffic Control and Customs.
Introduction
The conquest of space was never
an easy undertaking and Mother
Earth, as though reluctant to let
her children escape her influence,
placed obstacles in the way
which made the enterprise a
difficult and costly one. The very
force which retained the
atmospheric envelope upon
which life depended, also formed
a barrier requiring enormous
energy to penetrate. Beyond this
lay an inconceivable vastness
entirely antagonistic to our life-
form, forcing Man to rely on the
efficiency of machines to recreate
on a tiny scale, those conditions
vital to his survival.
Despite these deterrents, Man
gradually edged his way into
space: first to Earth's lunar
companion, then to Mars and its
own moons — Phobos and
Deimos — turning their lonely
desolation to his own ends.
Industry developed there and
they became home for
thousands, an increasing number
of whom had never set foot on
the planet which would always
remain their spiritual birthplace.
As the years passed the
expansion accelerated and the
men of Terra travelled and
worked throughout the Solar
System in machines that were
increasingly efficient. But peril
was ever-present and the
smallest error or frailty could end
in disaster.
During these early years the
dangers faced were all a direct
result of the uncompromising
nature of space itself, but the
discovery that we were not alone
in the Galaxy led to further
problems and penalties. Our
encounter with the inhabited
systems of Alpha and Proxima
Centauri - our nearest stellar
neighbors — led eventually to the
awful devastation of the Proxima
Wars. The actual course of this
prolonged and desperate struggle
Acknowledgements
The Publishers would like to thank Young Artists and the Sarah Brown agency for their assistance in the preparation of this book.
has been recorded elsewhere and
is outside the scope of this book,
but the impetus it gave to the
evolution of spaceflight was
immeasurable, offering Man a
freedom of movement among the
stars which had been
inconceivable a generation
earlier.
By the end of the twenty-first
century the first of many settler
ships were carrying the pioneers
of the Terran Federation to found
colonies on the new worlds
explored by the survey ships of
the Terran Trade Authority. Man
was rapidly becoming a truly
interstellar being, seeding himself
among the stars and filling the
black vacuum with his ships. As
the web of his trade routes
expanded and his restlessness
pushed ships deeper into the
Galaxy, so the inevitability of
further contact with other
sentient beings increased — and
with it the risk of further clashes
between alien cultures.
The design and development
of military craft that had begun in
earnest with the Proxima Wars
was continued as a result, both to
support the advance into distant
systems and to defend the
Federation when the time arose.
Battle fleets were maintained and
renewed as technology advanced
providing the means to construct
ever more efficient, ever more
deadly ships. But a huge war
machine cannot be kept in peak
readiness forever when there is
no enemy to threaten the steady
and remorseless march of
colonial expansion.
Imperceptibly, efficiency and
precision are eroded, and caution
is replaced by complacency. As
had been anticipated, other
inhabited systems were found
but in every case where the
occupants demonstrated
intelligence, their levels of
development were always inferior
to that represented by the Terran
Federation and served to
reinforce the growing ambition
and arrogance of its leaders.
As often happens in this kind
of situation, fate intervened and
disaster struck in the form of the
unexpected and catastrophic war
with the Laguna system. The
Terran Federation found itself
confronted by a powerful and
determined adversary with
weapons at its disposal which
threatened the very existence of
the sprawling giant which had
grown from one planet circling
an insignificant yellow star near
the outer edge of the Galaxy.
The story of this epic struggle
between two alien and proud
civilizations with immense power
at their command and the
survival of their species as the
goal represents the greater part of
this book. Each of the crucial
stages in this battle of the Titans
and the events which shaped
them are described here. Earth
and the Terran Federation came
closer to extinction than at any
other time in its history and the
battles that took place in the dark
and silent wastes of space were
fought with a ferocity that only
sheer desperation can bring
about.
But although the war with
Laguna must inevitably occupy
the greater part of any history of
Man's battles with the unknown,
this period saw many smaller
conflicts and confrontations of
individual significance. The trials
and tribulations of colonization
have challenged the
determination and ingenuity of
men throughout history, but the
struggle to survive in strange and
often hostile surroundings has
never been more terrible than on
virgin worlds deep in space. The
horror faced by the settlers of
Drakon's Folly was by no means
unique in its nightmare quality,
and is therefore representative of
the hardships suffered in dozens
of isolated solar systems around
the perimeter of known space.
Similarly, the fight of order and
justice against chaos and
rebellion is a story as old as Man
himself and his exodus to the
stars only broadened the
battleground. In a civilization as
dispersed as that of the
Federation, the enforcement of
law required a special breed of
men to police settlements light
years from anywhere and
maintain the security of the
spacelanes and trade routes. Too
often their lonely vigils and deadly
skirmishes with pirates and
villains went unrecorded. The
accounts included here are not
isolated incidents but are part of
an unceasing war, and for every
hero returning triumphant there
are many whose bodies spin like
bizarre meteorites through the
emptiness.
The maintenance of order in an
interstellar civilization requires a
degree of control which to many
is in itself undesirable, and the
nearer one approaches the
administrative center of such a
society, the more rigid its
constraints. It was inevitable that
one day someone would attempt
to overthrow the leaders of the
Federation and suitable
contingency plans were
constantly under review. But
when that day came the reactions
so carefully formulated proved
almost entirely inadequate.
Here then is a record of some of
the most significant battles
fought in the history of Earthmen,
covering a broad spectrum of
human conflict and passions. The
same qualities of enterprise and
endeavour, courage and
determination that both pushed
Man into a new era and created
some of his greatest obstacles are
all to be found in this record of
Great Space Battles.
Part One-The Laguna Wars
The Nightmare Begins
When the giant Colonial VIII ship
Venturer lifted off from Miami in May
2219 its occupants and Terra Control
looked forward to an uneventful
though long voyage. The crew settled
in for the seven months of unvarying
routine that lay before them - 24
hours a day for 200 days, with only
meaningless, imprisoned rest days to
dent the monotony. Laguna 9, their
destination, promised the 400-odd
colonists aboard a safe, though
necessarily hard start as its first
inhabitants. The survey carried out
some months earlier, though brief,
had established that gravitational,
climatic and atmospheric conditions
would not prove themselves beyond
adaptation by modern technology,
while the constituent elements of the
planet's surface contained minerals
sufficiently valuable on Terra to
justify their exploitation. As for life,
the survey teams had detected no
signs other than of rudimentary plant
formations.
As the days and weeks passed, the
daily transmissions received from the
ship indicated nothing unusual: a
temporary breakdown of the water
condensers, soon repaired; two
uncomplicated pregnancies among
colonists; a death. Two days before
going into pre-setdown orbit, in the
middle of the lengthy preparations
for arrival, something rather more
unusual happened. In the middle of
an otherwise uneventful watch the
3rd officer received a report of a
major flight computer malfunction -
all computer-controlled guidance
functions then abruptly shut down.
Before the officer of the watch had
had time to grasp the implications of
this, or even summon the
commander from his quarters, the
systems had started to function
normally again. The shutdown had
lasted perhaps 20 seconds. Repair
crews and fault analysis systems were
unable to identify any damage and
the incident went down in the
commander's log as a presumed freak
external electronic disturbance.
As the moment of setdown
approached, and with the
complexities of the manoeuvres to
bring the ship into orbit, the
incident, though not forgotten,
assumed smaller proportions; as the
ship settled on to its pads and the
thunderous roar of the engines died,
it was forgotten. In the control center
gyros whined down as switches were
thrown, instrument displays flickered
out, and the soothing hum of the air
system emerged again from the
jumble of sounds that had masked it
for months past. Then came the
hissing of the airlocks and the
unfamiliar throbbing of the motors
swinging out the exit chutes.
As the settlers gathered beneath
the ship in their pressure suits,
preparing to receive the machinery
that would provide them with air to
breathe and water to drink, only two
crew members remained in the
control center, one on duty at the
monitor screens, the other an
engineer engaged in routine pre-
liftoff checks. Both, at the same time,
realized that certain systems were
malfunctioning again.
A Colonial VIM similar to the ill-fated
Venturer, seen here fending off raiders
from the Capella system. No pictorial
record of the Venturer remains.

8

A Terran scout car equipped with
detection gear, light laser armament
and sand tyres, which is all that
remains on Laguna 9 of the Venturer's
cargo.
The symptoms were the same as
had shown themselves a few days
earlier, but this time an object was
visible on the scanner screens. The
two men left the computer to shift
into its fault analysis programmes
and concentrated on the screens,
switching from one magnification
scale to another in an attempt to
gain the best identification. It was
definitely a ship, of medium size,
approaching rapidly through the
planet's atmosphere.
Turning for a moment to the fault
analysis checks printing out on
another screen, the engineer realized
that, as the unidentified ship drew
nearer, the malfunction, previously
erratic and intermittent, was now
complete. Shutting down the affected
systems, which controlled the ship's
guidance and attitude functions that
he had been testing prior to
departure, he instructed the
computer to scan its spacecraft
recognition reference in search of a
positive identification, and
summoned the commander.
The foregoing is a statement of
events recorded on the ship's taped
log and function recorder, both
duplicated at Terra Control. Even
now, little more is known of the fate
of Venturer or its passengers and
crew as they stood helpless on the
surface of Laguna 9. There only
remains the last recorded message of
the commander as he arrived in the
control center: 'Preliminary I. D.
query pirate... no... correction...
a fleet... maybe eight ships...
query the pirate fleet operating
around Verkanska group last year...
no... correction... unidentified...
too late... under attack.... ' The
end of this message coincided with
the automatic switching in of
Venturer's S. O. S. system, which
itself cut out after a few moments.
This meant that the entire ship had
been destroyed.
This event, intruding suddenly
after nearly two centuries of peaceful
or unresisted colonization, created
little more than a ripple in the stream
of sluggish complacency that had
flowed throughout the Terran
Federation's domains for so long.
Since the winning of the Proxima
Wars, nothing had stood in the way
of Terra's ambitions - and this
massacre, involving the deaths of a
mere 400 Terrans, did little to shake
the ingrown feelings of confident
supremacy: a fly's footsteps on the
arm of a dozing giant.
Nevertheless, within hours the
Terran Defence Authority's War
Group was in session, and a short
while later a decision, lightly taken
yet momentous in its consequences,
emerged. The Massed Fleets
exercises, scheduled to commence in
three days, were replanned. Fourth
and Seventh Fleets would gather off
Laguna 9 and carry out a search-and-
destroy exercise. The Fourth Fleet,
based on Petersen 3, could be at the
rendezvous in 15 days, and the
Seventh could join it two days later.
The remaining fleets would
participate in an invasion exercise on
Proxima Centauri.
Thus was the ground laid for the
disastrous conflict known as the \
Laguna Wars: without an inkling of
what was to come and, as has so often
happened in mankind's history,
without preparation.
Forty-eight hours later the two
mighty fleets, a magnificent and
costly spectacle, thundered off their
launchpads, 82 craft in all, as
majestic in their assembly as the
ancient maritime fleets of five
centuries before, and many bearing
the names of their illustrious naval
forebears. Combined, the fleets
included the massive battleships
Missouri, Repulse, Bismarck,
Temeraire and Lenin, with seven
others; eight Space-Interceptor
Carriers; eight Atmo-Interceptor
Carriers; and assorted troop-carriers,
supply ships, repair craft and
Ground-Attack Craft.
Settling down to the speed of their
lowliest and most ungainly vessels,
the fleets set course for the
rendezvous off Laguna 9. A sense of
excitement pervaded the crews; at
last there might be a real enemy,
while in the Flagship's wardroom the
commander-in-chief held a reception
for the captains under his command.
For four hours launches wove fiery
trails around the fleets as the guests
arrived and departed.
As the now renamed First Battle
Fleet approached the fringes of the
Laguna Group, patrols were sent out
to reconnoitre the planets
surrounding Laguna 9, with
instructions to report any activity

10

and subsequently rendezvous with
the Fleet off Laguna 9. On arrival at
the rendezvous a final video briefing
was held. The principal assault force,
under Marshal Keyes, would
descend to the site of the Venturer
massacre, while smaller detachments
were organized into a search pattern
that would cover the entire surface of
the planet. Atmo-lnterceptor
Carriers were to remain in orbit at
equal intervals from each other to
provide the maximum cover, and a
second major assault force, under
Marshal Fodor, would stand off the
Venturer site in readiness to close in
at a moment's notice. In the
meantime a Space-Interceptor
Carrier supported by four Ground-
Attack Craft was detailed to take up
station off Laguna 7, following an ill-
defined patrol report of activity on
that planet.
As the Commander-in-Chief's face
faded from the screens a brief hush
fell. For all of the men under his
command, this was to be the first
military engagement, a far cry from
the piecemeal policing activities of
the past two centuries. After years of
drilling and exercising to stave off
the awful inactivity of armed forces
in peacetime, they were confronted
with their first fight. Yet, of course,
the lack of a real challenge had
produced a steady if imperceptible
decline in their state of readiness and
their standard of proficiency. If any
of them was aware of this, however,
he could perhaps find comfort in the
visible strength, the sheer
overpowering weight, of this great
fleet.
For the two hours that followed
the commander-in-chief's message,
there was a complete intership
communication blackout as the
infinitely delicate sensor systems
probed and tested for signs of activity
on the surface of Laguna 9 and in its
atmosphere. Computers sifted,
sorted, clicked, whirred and printed.
Negative, negative, negative, each
screen repeated time and again.
Negative sound, negative movement,
negative living matter, negative
electronic activity, negative nuclear
activity, negative, negative,
negative... Finally the two hours
dragged to a close: there didn't seem
much point in waiting any longer.
The Interceptor Carriers dropped
one by one into orbit, the Laguna 7
detachment turned and blasted away,
the search groups peeled off down
into the murky atmosphere and then,
at a given signal, the first assault
force began its descent to the
Venturer site. Aboard the battleship
Repulse, Marshal Keyes led his force
into growing gloom as they dropped
silently through the thick atmosphere
of the waiting planet, locked into
rigid formation by a tracery of laser
beams. Negative reports were already
coming through from the search
ships as they crisscrossed the
surface of the planet when suddenly
A Terran Atmo-lnterceptor returning
to its mother ship, one of the large
contingent that fought under Marshal
Keyes in the tragic first battle off
Laguna 9.

PETER ELSON

The ground-attack craft Achilles
(foreground) at the moment of
collision with the troop-carrier
Remus. This tragic event resulted from
the first — and at that time
unexplained - guidance systems failure
aboard every vessel in Marshal Keyes'
fleet.
the assault force formation began to
break up.
Formation and guidance systems
aboard all ships had inexplicably
failed. Secondary systems were
hurriedly switched in - but without
avail. By now the troop-carrier
Remus had collided with the Ground-
Attack Craft Achilles. For a frozen
instant both remained locked
together, then Achilles exploded,
blasting Remus bodily sideways
before she fell helplessly towards the
surface, turning over and over like a
leaf. The blast hit the other ships as
their crews struggled to gain manual
control of their craft, and further
collisions resulted.
In the midst of the chaos, the
Chief Scanner Officer aboard Repulse
reported the sighting of a small fleet
of unidentified craft approaching
rapidly. As the remaining ships
began to respond to manual control
and emerge from the wreckage-
littered mess of 30 seconds before,
the strange fleet opened fire with
laser weapons. Commander Keyes
gave the order for the fire to be
returned, but when the central
switch controlling the armaments of
the entire force was thrown, all hell
broke loose.
The ships' powerful defence force
fields had been capable of
withstanding the enemy's initial
13


attack, but force fields have a point at
which they cannot be regenerated
fast enough to deflect all assaults, and
when Marshal Keyes' force opened
fire this condition was reached in
seconds, for their fire went
completely wild.
The Repulse sustained multiple
hits from her sister ship Redoutable,
in turn battered by the missile cruiser
Motumbi. After a moment of sheer
panic, with his ship maimed and
spiralling downwards, Keyes realized
that the weapon aiming systems had
gone the same way as the guidance
and formation systems. The assault
force's firepower was out of control.
Too late, the weapons systems
were shut down, but enemy fire was
still taking its toll. Keyes called in
Atmo-Interceptors from the waiting
carriers, and the second assault force
moved into action, but within
moments the reinforcing craft were
careering wildly out of control. Some
collided, others hurtled devastatingly
into the surface of Laguna 9, others
raced spacewards, and yet others
bore on into the midst of Keyes'
assault force, spreading terrible
destruction.
As commanders fought to regain
control of their ships, as men
screamed, burned, struggled, died, as
damaged ships reeled, exploded, or
accelerated helplessly downwards,
the enemy fleet slipped quietly away.
Keyes and Fodor, after a brief
exchange, ordered their forces to
retire. As a tug descended to take the
crippled Repulse in tow, the dazed
survivors guided their craft away
from Laguna 9 back towards the
haven of Petersen 3. Sixty-two
interceptors had been destroyed, as
had 18 of the 40 craft in the two
assault forces, yet the orbiting
carriers and the search details had
emerged without damage. Of all
classes of ship, the battleships had
come off worst; fast, yet huge and
unwieldy, they had proved the most
difficult to bring under control and,
because of their size, the most
vulnerable to enemy fire.
One of the Lagunan high command
escaping from the subterranean
inferno of a command post hit by stray
Terran vesta-beam fire. A new weapon
of limited availability, the vesta-beam
was a heat-generating hyperwave
device.
JIM BURNS
15
The Forgotten Fleet
Even as the shattered fleet limped
back towards base, the TDA War
Group was once again in session.
The tables had been turned on
Terra. An apparently small force had
succeeded in completely disabling
the Terran Fleet and had sent it
home defeated. Now Terra faced the
possibility that the enemy would
pursue its attack to Terra itself. In
such a situation it would have been
normal to launch forces that would
confine the enemy to his territory or
at least keep him at bay on the fringes
of the Terran Federation, but in this
case no one could be certain that any
new Terran force would not be
disabled on approach in the same
way as the Fourth and Seventh
Fleets had been.
Scientists and weapons experts
studied the reports coming in from
the homebound fleet. All told the
same story - there was no clue as to
the precise nature of the force or
beam that had presumably
penetrated the ships' defence shields
and the computers' own force fields.
All that was known was that it had
simultaneously and indiscriminately
done so, though only at close range,
the latter proved by the fact that the
orbiting Interceptor Carriers and the
widely-spread search craft had
emerged unscathed.
The conclusion was inevitable: any
craft that were to confront the
Laguna forces must be capable of
being manually controlled. Only
computerized control systems had
been affected, not motive systems -
thus there was power for all a ship's
functions and the simpler, localized
electronic and automatic devices
were untouched. There remained the
problem of the main control systems,
governing guidance, attitude and
armament. Most ships were
equipped with emergency manual
controls for all three functions, but
these were crude and limited,
designed for temporary use in
desperate circumstances and not for
the precise ordering of long voyages
or the tactical pursuit of a campaign.
It would be suicidal to meet the
enemy on this handicapped basis.
As the War Group's session wore
on, animated discussion of the fleet's
reports gave way to the sombre
realization of Terra's plight. Only
one man at the massive, sculptured
ebony table nursed the germ of an
idea. Commander Bernd Gerling, the
junior member of the Group in years,
rank and service, had won a place on
it through his inspired handling of
the crisis on Proxima Centauri two
years earlier when, through creative
improvisation, he had prevented the
destruction of the Terran fleet based
there. Routine inspection had
revealed that the recently renewed
warheads aboard the fleet's eight
missile ships were unstable and that
they had entered a cycle of nuclear
activity that would culminate within
eight hours in their explosion.
Nothing could be done to reverse or
halt the cycle, and the indiscriminate
launching of the missiles would
probably result in the destruction of
unsuspecting ships in space or even
of nearby planets.
Gerling had acted instantly.
Within moments tugs had attached
hawsers to a half-built supply ship
lying in the Proxima yards and were
hauling it spacewards as fast as they
could go. Casting off two hours later,
they grouped and sped for shelter
while Gerling prepared for the firing
of the faulty missiles. As they
smashed harmlessly into the supply
ship's drifting hulk moments later, a
cheer went up at Proxima Control,
echoed on Terra.
Now, still awed by the abundance
of rank seated around him at what
was only his second War Group
meeting, Gerling wondered how he
could present his idea without
attracting the derision of his seniors.
Shifting restlessly in his chair, he
sought to attract the attention of the
Chairman. Then those famous
heavy-lidded oriental eyes were on
him, and he was being invited to
speak. A hush fell as the Group's
members recognized a hint of hope in
what he was saying. Silent among the
tiny planets of the Braun formation
lay the warships of preceding Terran
generations, like the ghosts of
previous centuries. Watched over by
a small garrison, they hung lifeless on
their moorings year after year, vainly
awaiting the call to arms but more
The ageing Terran battleship Umberto
emerges from a service hangar on a
planet in the Braun group. Pressed
back into service after ten years in the
mothball fleet, the Umberto was later
rammed by a Lagunan city-ship and
exploded, killing all aboard.

16


likely in due course to join one of the
batches annually dismantled.
In this graveyard, Gerling went
on, there were hundreds of craft
actually designed and constructed for
manual control. They were not
wrecks, only obsolete and
decommissioned. They underwent
an annual maintenance. Dare he
suggest, he asked, that the Group
consider the possibility of putting
some of them back into service? And
as to crews, surely there were
reservists, perhaps a little grizzled
now, who could be recalled from the
nearer parts of the Empire to man
them?
By now feeling rather alone and
completely unnerved, Gerling
abruptly stopped. Someone laughed,
others leaned back in their chairs and
gazed at the ceiling, yet others talked
urgently with their neighbors,
occasionally glancing in Gerling's
direction. He began to feel as if he
had made an improper suggestion.
Then the Chairman smiled at him
and called the meeting to order.
Hours later the plan was complete.
Gerling, being still on active service,
would lead the mothball fleet against
Laguna 9, and would be in charge of
the selection and preparation of ships
and crews. His fleet would include
such already-operational craft as
could be modified in time for manual
control - a deadline of 30 days was
set. In the meantime an intensive
programme of reconnaissance and
patrol missions would commence,
aimed firstly at monitoring activity
on Laguna 9 and its neighbors, and
secondly at searching out the base of
Laguna 9's spacecraft operations.
While the first veteran craft were
assembling on Terra and the
reservists were beginning their
training, reports came in that
provided the first clue to the Laguna
mystery. One patrol, descending in
error closer to the surface than
intended, had reported sighting a
fissure in the planet's surface. Such a
sighting would not have seemed
significant had the fissure not closed
within seconds, leaving no sign of its
prior existence.
A second patrol assigned to follow
up this first observation was attacked
and returned depleted and without
further information, but by devising
a scheme involving decoy patrols the
TDA was able to get a third patrol
closer to the site of the fissure than
before. On arrival the patrol found
the fissure open; sufficiently open in
fact for dim outlines to be visible
beneath the surface. Pictures relayed
back to Terra verified the suspicions
aroused by the first patrol's report.
The fissure was created by the *
opening of huge camouflaged doors. V
Within lay constructions that might
be either military installations or part
of a center of habitation or city.
Presumably the people of Laguna 9
had a good reason, perhaps a historic
one, for camouflaging their existence
and living beneath the surface of an
apparently bare and lifeless planet -
but of their physical nature, their
numbers and their technology
nothing was known, least of all what
primitive hostile instincts had led the
Lagunans (if it had been them) to
destroy Venturer and massacre her
colonist passengers without
investigation or warning.
The presence of this opening and
the fact that the second patrol had
been attacked from another quarter
while surveying it suggested the
existence of other such openings, and
caused the War Group to modify its
plans. If the enemy were not a
nomadic race that lived in craft
constantly circling the planet, but
were entrenched beneath its surface,
a different range of craft would be
required for the attack. Back to the
Braun Group graveyards went
Gerling's men for troop-carriers and
surface-vehicle landing-craft.
Day and night they ranged
through the lines of dead ships,
climbing into their dark interiors and
over their dully-glinting hulls, until
the task was complete. Armoured
freighters brought precious cargoes
of nuclear piles from Terra to be
plugged into the ships' power trains
and engineers fussed to an fro as the
ships came back to life, checking each
system as it was switched in and

Gerling's command vessel, sole
surviving example of the famous and
highly successful LG 223 Starraker-
class light gunship. This one was 70
years old when returned to active
service.
finally, with the crossed fingers of
ancient superstition, firing up the
main drive.

18

relayed to and executed by the
commanders singly. In this lay the
Invasion Force's weakness, for the
process of personally relayed
command and the subsequent
execution of that command naturally
took longer than the computerized
system of central control.
The business of assembling the
fleet and recalling thousands of
reservists had been too conspicuous
to escape the attention of the news
media, and for days before the
launch, crowds, uncertain of its
precise timing, had ringed the
perimeter force fields of the bases.
Right across Terra, from Peking to
Chicago, Terrans cheered with one
united voice as Gerling's ships took
flight. First to leave were the fuel and
supply ships, so heavily laden that
tugs were needed to coax them off
their launch pads and haul them up
through the atmosphere against the
colossal drag of gravity.
Last to lift off was Gerling's
command vessel, a 70-year-old light
gunship, tremendously fast but
lightly armored, selected because of
its agility in both space and
atmosphere, and because its modest
proportions would not give it away as
the flagship. It represented the final
development of the human-
controlled ship, and Gerling's
disappointment that no further
examples had been found in the
graveyards was intense.
As Gerling lifted off from Berlin,
disaster struck. On the other side of
the world the Darwin contingent,
whose last ships were just emerging
from Terra's gravitational pull, was
suddenly attacked by a group of three
unidentified interceptors, each
differing in appearance from the
next, which had lain concealed in a
More than one ship exploded,
others suffered internal fires as
ancient circuitry protested, one tore
loose from its moorings, drive
controls jammed, and disappeared
into deep space, taking with it the
engineers' launches and fuel tenders
lying alongside. But most of the ships
came to heel, and two days ahead of
the deadline the Laguna invasion
force was complete. Dispersed
around the military bases at Peking,
Darwin, Tehran, Berlin and
Chicago, its ranks included
battleships, Interceptor-Carriers,
Ground-Attack Craft, troop- and
vehicle-carriers, surface-to-surface
bombardment craft, and a
detachment of special-purpose
mobile signal analysis laboratories,
the latter assigned partly to learn the
secrets of Laguna's disorientation
device but more importantly to give
early warning of its use.
Though Gerling's assignment was
clearly defined, he was to have a good
deal of latitude in the conduct of the
campaign. His brief was to take all
necessary action to silence the
Laguna threat and, once arrived at
the scene, he would have four
months to complete the task before a
return to Terra for refuelling or
alternatively fuel convoys from Terra
would become necessary.
For Gerling personally, the
preparation had been arduous,
including as it did retraining to adapt
his thinking to the obsolete
technology of the craft under his
command. Responses and decisions
usually made by computer would
have to be made by him and his
commanders. More problematic still,
major tactical decisions, previously
put into actuality by central control
from the flagship, would have to be
mess of orbiting debris and had
blasted into action as the first Darwin
ships slid by. Spacecraft are always
vulnerable during the moments
between lift-off and emergence from
atmosphere and gravity, but the
period when they shut down the
main drive, check their course and
adjust with auxiliary drive is one
when all operational crew-members
are preoccupied, and it was at this
juncture that the alien ships struck.
Two troop-carriers, an
Interceptor-Carrier and four
vulnerable gunships failed to survive
the attack, while little fire was
directed at the attackers. Aboard the
accompanying signal-analysis
laboratory, however, which clung
magnetically to the side of a giant
inter-galactic tug, the message came
through loud and clear: the force
being transmitted by the alien craft
in addition to their nuclear-powered
laser attack bore the same
characteristics as had caused the
near-destruction of Keyes' fleet off
Laguna 9.
Within moments the intruding
Laguna fighters had been blasted
apart by massive salvoes from a
gunship squadron, but Terra reeled
at the shock news of the Lagunans'
proximity. Given a few more hours,
perhaps Laguna forces would have
threatened the Terran Empire's
stronghold itself, for the presence of
interceptors in Terra's orbit meant
the presence of an Interceptor
Carrier, and Interceptor Carriers
invariably travel with escorts, and so
on... As Gerling's Invasion Force
cleared Terra's influence and set
course for Laguna 9, Terran-based
interceptor squadrons scrambled to
comb near space for Lagunan craft.

20
The First Clash

Gerling's plan was fairly simple:
Interceptor-Carriers would take up
equidistant positions in orbit around
Laguna 9, and detachments of
Ground-Attack Craft and surface
bombardment craft would attack key
identified sites simultaneously, with
troop- and vehicle-carriers in
support though hanging back.
Gerling's main battle fleet would lie
off Laguna 9 in readiness to support
or reinforce as necessary. As the
planet finally came into view morale
was high - there was a sense of
adventure in the air. Orders buzzed
around the fleet as ships prepared for
their appointed roles.
Just then, a massive swarm of craft
were sighted, coming into view from
the farther side of the planet. More
and ever more curved out from
behind Laguna's rim.
There was little time for
preparation. Gerling ordered his
more heavily-armed craft to the fore
and flanks, covering the more
vulnerable elements of the fleet, and
gave the order to fire when the enemy
was within range. Seconds ticked by
as the hostile fleet drew closer.
Gerling estimated it at over 200
strike craft.
As firing commenced, eyes
strained for evidence of a hit, but the
enemy craft raced inexorably
Terran armoured hovertanks collide
during the desperate action around the
entrance to the Lagunan underground
bases. This collision, like others in

space and on the surface, was the
result of the use of the Lagunan
systems-disorientation device.


onwards, apparently unscathed, with
detachments peeling off from left and
right wings to attack the Terran
force's flanks. Now they were at close
range, yet the enemy had not opened
fire. Meantime Gerling's ships were
bringing every weapon to bear.
Then, simultaneously, a thousand minds grasped the same awful truth. They could see their laser beams and missiles passing straight through the enemy craft and continuing out the other side.
Too late, Gerling realised that his
fleet was attacking a force of three-
dimensional decoy projections.
Urgently, over the communications
systems, came the report of an attack
on the rear of his fleet. A handful of
craft was already exacting a severe
toll of the supply and support vessels
in the van of the force, while escorts
wheeled desperately round to meet
the attackers.
Wary now of his opponent's
tactics, Gerling ordered
reinforcements to the rear, while
retaining as much strength at the fore
and flanks as he could. While the
battle raged behind them, scanners
probed for signs of other activity:
sure enough a further force was
lifting off from the surface of
Laguna 9. Gerling's mind was
already made up: he must take the
initiative and attack before his fleet
was beleaguered on all sides.
Boldly, he ordered Interceptor-
Carriers into orbit. Their
interceptors were to give immediate
support to the force of Ground-
Attack Craft that he simultaneously
ordered to attack the Lagunan bases,
and the surface-bombardment craft
that he had assigned to tear holes in
Laguna's protective upper surface.
The ground-attack detachments met
the Lagunan reinforcements head on
in Laguna's murky atmosphere;
some losses were sustained but the
main force bore on through, leaving
its escorting interceptors to fight the
battle they left behind.
Minutes later they were pouring
missiles into the giant doors shielding
the Laguna bases, while the
bombardment craft settled on to the
planet's surface to commence their
terrible and inexorable barrage. As
they did so, massive armored
vehicles emerged on to the surface
and, rolling towards them, began to
return their fire.
Gerling saw that his forces were
now strung out to a dangerous
degree. There was fighting at his
rear, fighting ahead in the planet's
atmosphere, and the beginnings of a
pitched battle on the surface, while at
any moment the enemy might fling a
new force at him. He decided that,
provided he could keep the rearward
action under control, he must press
on towards Laguna, pushing the
enemy before him, in order to force
the pace and (a vital consideration)
support his forward detachments.
Gerling knew his decision would
be a costly one, but the strength of
the enemy was such that he saw he
must not allow them to maintain the
initiative. As Gerling's main
battlefleet moved slowly forward,
pressing home its fearful attack and
still fighting a vigorous rearward
action, losses on both sides began to
mount with awful rapidity, but the
sheer weight of metal on the Terran
side was telling, and within 15
minutes of Gerling's order the
Lagunan craft broke off and sped for
safety towards the dark side of the
planet.
Ordering interceptors to pursue
them, Gerling took stock of the
situation on the surface. It looked as
if his ground forces had the
Lagunans encircled, hemmed in at
the rim of a mile-wide hole that the
bombarding Terran ships had torn in
the surface. Now as the circle
tightened, retreating Lagunan
vehicles toppled helplessly into the
chasm. He had them contained at this
one point, and having discovered a
weakness he decided to exploit it.
First, however, there must be time,
a pause; his crews must have a period
of calm to recover from the shock of
battle, from the incessant strain of
working their ships and weapons
under the frenetic pace of battle
conditions; his commanders must
assess the state of their craft, their
crews, their losses, their damage; and
he needed time to recover and to
formulate the next move in the
deadly game. Of advice he had
plenty - some human, some from the
battle computers that spat out their
own analysis of his position - but
now, as he sat staring at the face of
the ravaged planet, he saw that in
spite of all that technology had put at
his command, he would have to make
his decision alone.
His mind began to wander away
down the paths of ancient history. It
was evading its task. Briefly, he
despaired; for a single, fallible
human brain it was all too complex,
too big. Still, as his father used to
say, one must get on with the job.
Moments later his commanders
had their orders. The main ground
force would press on to the rim of the
hole, and scout craft would enter it to
attempt a reconnaissance; some
would be destroyed but it had to be
done. Elsewhere constant patrolling
of the remainder of the planet would
keep Gerling informed of any other
activity, and patrols would enter the
other holes in the surface. If he could
contain the Lagunans inside their
planet, he could begin to weaken
their resistance by constant erosion
of their positions and defences. From
where he sat, it looked like a long job.
An obsolete Terran mobile missile
launcher of the AV 624 Scorpion type,
fires at Lagunan positions. These
vehicles were quite outclassed and
suffered heavy losses before being
withdrawn.
22


A Mysterious Liquid
A Terran scoutship noses through the
semi-darkness of a subterranean
Lagunan city.
Unaware of what might be lying in
wait for them, the scoutships with
their interceptor escorts lowered
themselves into the mouth of the
black and yawning chasm. Around
them on the rim lay the shattered,
buckled and melted debris of the
surface battle that had just ended. A
few spacesuited corpses sprawled on
the planet's rocky ground.
Observers easily distinguished
between Terran and Lagunan suits,
but they could not see what form of
body lay inside the Lagunan suits.
Nevertheless - and this was to prove
an important factor later in the
wars - the suits proved that the
Lagunans needed suits for survival,
which in turn meant that they could
not breathe the planet's atmosphere.
The news was relayed back to
Gerling.
Inside the hole all was darkness
and calm. As they flooded the scene
with light the scoutships saw beneath
them a city of towering needle-like
buildings, stretching as far as they
could see. They calculated that they
were flying 1000 meters above the
tops of even the tallest buildings,
while the buildings themselves were
so tall that their lower halves
remained shrouded in darkness.
Nothing stirred, yet somewhere
beneath them in the blackness, they
knew, must lie the bases from which
the Lagunan attackers had launched
themselves.
Receiving these reports, Gerling
was perplexed. He had been poised
to follow the scoutships and
interceptors into the hole had they
been ambushed - indeed an ambush
was what he had expected. The
longer his scoutships cruised below
the surface and the further they flew,
the more difficult it would be for him
to send aid to them. Well, he would
send aid anyway. If he ordered the
scoutships out, what would he do
next, and what information would he
have gained? Perhaps the arrival of a
heavier force would tempt his enemy
to make a move and thus give away
his positions.
The gunships and Ground-Attack
Craft eased themselves into the hole
and vanished from sight. They too
appeared to be having an uneventful
passage. For a few moments there
was an unexplained break in
transmission from the command-ship
but before Gerling had drawn the
obvious conclusion from it the
commander's voice was coming
through again loud and clear. Still
nothing had happened. Gerling
ordered interceptors to descend and
investigate from a lower level, though
this meant a perilous navigation
through the dense forest of buildings.
The interceptors reported the
sighting of some weapons
installations and stationary craft, but
no activity. Puzzled, perplexed and
apprehensive, Gerling ordered all
craft out. The enemy must have
something up his sleeve, but with a
large force at risk Gerling was not
prepared to wait long enough to find
out what it was. Instead, he would
play a waiting game above the
planet's outer surface.
Even today, with the benefit of

25

hindsight, he is not to be blamed for
failing to anticipate what happened
next. It is important to remember
that for two centuries previously
Terra had held sway throughout the
explored universe. No challenge to
Terra's supremacy had been raised
during this period. Terran weapons
and strategy had of course developed,
but there had been no competition to
meet or new weapons to resist, and
thus the armed forces and their
equipment were only good enough to
meet an enemy playing their own
game - not one who invented new
rules.
It was the high speed of his
detachments' exit from the hole that
first struck Gerling. Compared with
their hesitant entry it looked either
recklessly confident or panic-
stricken. In the event he did not have
much time to ponder this, for within
seconds his own interceptors and
gunships had opened fire on his fleet
as it hung motionless above the
planet.
The interceptors tore into the
ranks, loosing missiles and laser
beams to the limit of their capacity,
while the heavier gunships cruised
around the edges of his formation,
hiding themselves behind a curtain of
fire.
Taken utterly by surprise, the
Terran ships were momentarily
paralyzed, but as the truth dawned
and the attackers began to take their
toll, the fire was returned. Within 30
minutes all the incerceptors and
gunships had been destroyed, while
the scoutships and Ground-Attack
Craft had spent themselves in
fortunately unsuccessful attempts at
ramming. Most were damaged or
destroyed, but one scoutship was
captured, with its two-man crew
alive and unharmed.
Desperately the crew struggled to
destroy themselves as their craft
hung motionless, trapped in the
magnetic snare of a battleship, but
they were reached in time and
brought aboard. Under interrogation
the two men remained silent. For all
the world could see they were the
same men as had climbed aboard
their tiny craft an hour earlier, yet
the electric impulses of their brains
did not follow the human pattern. At
some moment, presumably during
the transmission blackout, the bodies
of the humans aboard the ships
cruising among the towers of
Laguna's city had been invaded and
occupied by Lagunan minds.
Alternatively, and even more mind-
boggling, they had somehow been
replaced by clones.
At the ensuing video conference
Gerling's face was long. Against a
visible and tangible enemy his men
and his ships could fight, but against
subversive weapons, against an
invisible force, he felt powerless. All
he could do was to try to force the
Lagunan's to fight on his terms and
according to his rules. But how could
he tempt the enemy from his lair?
In the middle of the conference
Gerling was called to the control
center of his ship. Four large
unidentified craft, with an
accompaniment of smaller craft, had
been sighted by the scanners,
approaching through space from the
direction of Laguna 7. As Gerling
watched the screens, further small
craft took up station alongside the
convoy, themselves issuing from the
rearmost of the large ships. Clearly
this was an Interceptor-Carrier,
whose interceptors were escorting
either three heavy warships or three
large freighters. By its trajectory the
group was clearly heading for
Laguna 9, and as Gerling watched it
picked up speed and split into three
units, the carrier dropping back, and
made for the opposite side of the
planet. This had to be a valuable
cargo shipment, Gerling deduced.
Why else would a group of ships,
vastly outnumbered by the Terran
force, make a run for a Lagunan
port? The fact that they had split up
reinforced his belief- if all three of
the ships did not make it, perhaps
one would.
For the freighters and their crews
to run such appalling risks, the
shipment must be vital. Gerling saw
that he must prevent it from reaching
its destination at all costs - but very
little time was left.
Instantly he ordered a squadron of
gunships to take up position between
the oncoming freighters and the
waiting planet, while interceptors
swooped away to attack the three <*
A Lagunan battleship aided by tugs
enters its dock beneath the surface of °
the planet in an attempt to escape <
Terran fire. <
26



units from the rear. As the gunships,
racing against time, drew near to
their positions, they were met by a
hail of missiles from the surface,
while the interceptors were
themselves attacked from behind by a
swarm of like craft from the
shadowing carrier.
As his ships, their defence shields
soon exhausted, one by one suffered
shattering hits from the unending
stream of missiles hurled at them
from Laguna, the gunship squadron
commander asked for leave to
withdraw, but Gerling ordered him
to stand fast until the Lagunan units
arrived and until he could get
reinforcements to the scene.
Meantime, the Terran
interceptors, themselves already
severely depleted, had damaged one
of the freighters, which began to veer
off course, leaking huge weightless
globules of a milky substance as it
did so. With a gasp of horror, one of
Gerling's observers shouted that the
crippled ship, still travelling at
enormous velocity, was heading
straight for Gerling's command ship,
itself motionless above the planet.
The freighter was so vast that
Gerling knew nothing short of
complete disintegration could stop
it, and even then the heaviest
components, the engines, might well
come inexorably on.
As his ships' engines blazed into
life and the deck pressed him
upward, Gerling's heart was in his
mouth. Around him men stood
frozen to the spot, while outside
Gerling's escort vessels fired
furiously and futilely at the mindless
hulk that was tearing a terrible path
through their ranks, its cargo
draining into the space vacuum
through the jagged, gaping holes in
its flanks, its engines silent and all
lights extinguished.
Seconds later the dead ship rushed
silently by, finally detonating as it
contacted a luckless supply-ship that
had failed to get out of its way. The
blast threw Gerling's ship and
escorts bodily sideways and sent
them tumbling towards the planet's
surface, and during these seconds of
lost time the battle to halt and
destroy the freighters ended. Eight
Terran gunships and thirteen
interceptors had been lost, while of
the advancing force only one
damaged freighter, now drifting
helplessly, remained. Meantime the
freighters' escorts were being
mopped up.
Its defence shield, like its main
drive, out of action, the drifting
freighter was able to do little to fend
off the approaching Terran boarding
party. For some moments she
sustained a steady flow of fire from
her auxiliary weapons, but this died
out as the armored Terran launch
nudged alongside her battered hull.
Under orders to capture the cargo
and crew with minimum damage, the
boarders skilfully blew in the main
airlock outer doors, and soon
reported that they had penetrated to
the interior of the ship.
There they met with fierce
resistance from the surviving, space-
suited crewmembers, some of whose
comrades had died a horribly painful
and messy death as a result of the
sudden change from normal
atmospheric pressure to total vacuum
that the blasting of the airlock had
produced. By the time the survivors
were overwhelmed, three were still
alive, all injured, and they were
immediately ferried over by launch
to Gerling's command vessel. In the
meantime damage repair crews were
sent to the freighter to rig up a
temporary airlock and repressurize
the hull.
Two hours later their chief
reported the freighter ready to enter
and a team of scientists went aboard
to begin work on the analysis of
cargo. What they found was a system
of large interlinked and refrigerated
tanks, all containing the same liquid:
a sluggish, milky substance. Initial
analytic tests failed to offer any clue
as to the liquid's constituents. But
they did suggest that it had little to
do with the two basic human
requirements - air to breathe and
food to eat.
A Lagunan freighter, out of control,
ploughs into a luckless Terran supply-
ship after narrowly missing Gerling's
own command-ship.
COLIN HAY
29

A Clue
Bernd Gerling was worried-and
frustrated. What was the mysterious
liquid so crucial to the survival of the
Lagunans? The scientists had failed
to give him the quick answer that he
sought, and he decided to turn his
attention to the Lagunan prisoners.
Two of these, on transfer from the
launch to the ship's airlock, had
succeeded in struggling free for long
enough to tear off their helmets and
had thus died instantly, but the third,
in spite of similar efforts, was still
alive. Gerling went down to the cabin
in which he was being held,
accompanied by two of his officers.
There, strapped to a chair at wrists,
neck and ankles, and encircled by
armed guards, sat the twisting and
writhing figure of a man, in all visible
physical characteristics the same as
the Terrans in the room.
In anticipation of the possibility
that he might have a poison capsule
fitted to a tooth, his mouth had been
wedged open by the insertion of a
steel clamp. With this in position the
man could not speak, yet Gerling
knew that to remove it even for a
split second might bring instant
death, and he had to get some
answers. Impatient now, he ordered
a medical orderly to administer a
paralyzing drug, leaving the man
conscious but helpless while his
mouth was searched. The capsule
located and removed, first an
antidote to the paralyzing agent and
second a large dose of pentathol
derivative were administered, and ten
minutes later the interrogation
began.
As the door of the cabin hissed
shut behind him and he walked
briskly back towards his control
center, Gerling prepared his next
move. He had successfully
intercepted the incoming freighters
but the non-arrival of their evidently
precious cargo would make the
Lagunans doubly desperate to
receive a further consignment.
While, depending on the methods
employed, the interrogation of the
luckless prisoner might yield
information about the nature of the
liquid carried and its port of
departure, he must take whatever
steps he could now to frustrate
further attempts to ship the liquid in.
The computer ran back through its
tracking of the freighters' trajectory
from moment of first sighting, and as
it calculated and then traced on the
big chartscreen the missing part of
the voyage, a line of light advancing
across the screen moved slowly
towards a large planet with three
smaller satellites, whose
configuration Gerling dimly
recognized. He demanded
identification of this group, and the
chart on the screen was replaced by a
larger-scale image of the planet. Now
the information he had wanted began
to type on the adjacent panel.
Laguna 7 it was.
Turning from the screens, Gerling
gave his orders. Without attempting
The ubiquitous multi-cargo SC 98K
Sherpa freighter-fueller. Though
unarmoured, such ships were forced to

undertake front-line operations to
keep the combat ships operational.

30


a landing, a carrier force with escorts
and ground-strike craft should set
course immediately for Laguna 7 and
attempt to effect a blockade of all
traffic to and from the planet. If he
sent too few craft, these would need
to expend a great deal of their on- 
board fuel supply in constant
patrolling and would soon have to be
refuelled. If they withdrew to refuel
from the main fleet fuellers off
Laguna 9 their blockade might be
broken, and if Gerling sent the
fuellers to Laguna 7 the Laguna 9
force's battleworthiness would be
reduced.
The alternative which he opted for
was to send a large force, which
could encircle Laguna 7 in orbit and
shut off main drives for extended
periods, This would leave him
weaker, but he had calculated the
risks. Two hours later, after a hectic
flurry of commands, briefings and
conferences, the ships' navigation
computers finally received their
programmes. At the same time, brief
bursts of flame from hundreds of
auxiliary drive systems hit the sky as
ships manoeuvred into formation for
the commencement of the voyage.
Then, with a muted farewell, the
Laguna 7 force moved out, and the
remaining ships, all too conscious of
the many gaps now left in their
ranks, closed up.
With his ship stirring beneath his
feet, Gerling remembered his
prisoner. Perhaps two hours of
questioning had yielded some
information, though the fact that he
had received no message from the
interrogators during the past two
hours suggested that their interesting
guest was not cooperating. He would
go and see for himself. What met his
eyes as the door slid open before him
was the sight of a dead man.
The faces that turned towards him
as he entered expressed
embarrassment. Something had gone
very wrong. A doctor who had been
leaning over the dead man turned.
'Sir, he must have reacted against
one of the drugs. I don't know how.
We didn't have much time for it but
we did run a test on him before we
started and the print-out was
Mobile surface-mining machines
pictured at work on Laguna 7. Many of

Laguna 9's essential raw materials
came from her sister planet.

32

negative all through. Look at his
hand: it's produced a kind of fungal
growth - it started happening about
three minutes before he died. I don't
really understand, sir... maybe... '
Gerling cut him short: 'Did he say
anything before he died?'
One of the interrogators nodded.
'We got plenty about him, sir, about
his life, you know. But no matter
what we gave him - or how much -
he told us nothing about the cargo or
about what's happening on
Laguna 9. These guys must have
some kind of training, maybe a sort
of brainwashing. He wasn't about to
tell us anything we wanted to
know... I could see that from the
start. '
At Gerling's request the
interrogator played back the
interview. The man had been a
conscript, in his last month of
service. The freighters had been
under military command. He liked
the trips to Laguna 9 - compared
with the austere purposefulness of
the Laguna 7 factories and their
bleak dormitories, the big capital city
of Laguna 9 offered unbounded
excitement. He had a woman on both
planets: on 9 a Terran, on 7 one of
those slight, dusky and unpredictable
Centaurian girls. His mother was a
direct descendant of one of the
original arrivals on Laguna 9 - he
could trace it straight back through
nine generations. This put him a cut
above the others.
The first men on Laguna had been
mutineers aboard the battleship
Chicago. Two hundred and twelve
years before, the crew of the Chicago
had mutinied after 17 months
unbroken deep-space service without
surface leave. They had killed all the
officers and then cruised around for a
further four months before finding
Laguna 9, which had seemed
hospitable enough. So they had
landed, their fuel and supplies nearly
exhausted. Sure, there had been
some people - if you could call them
that - living there already,
underground. They had killed them
too, and kept a few alive long enough
to show them how to run the life-
support systems and machines. They
hadn't needed to make a lot of
changes, just adapting the
atmosphere generators to produce
something a bit more like Terran air
than the Lagunan creeps used. The
rest they just moved into and took
over lock, stock and barrel. Of course
they had been a bit short of women;
there'd been a lot of fighting and
killing over the few they had, but
somehow they'd pulled through and
things weren't at all bad until the
Terrans came with their big ideas
about taking the place over. If it
hadn't been for the surprise weapons
and tactics they had inherited from
the old Lagunan monkeys maybe the
Terrans would have been a bit more
successful.
At this point in his wandering
monologue, drugged into sentimental
self-indulgence, the man had begun
to show signs of physical distress.
His subsequent utterances had been
incoherent, there being only one
reiterated plea, almost a terrified
obsessional scream, to be given some
'droth' to breathe. This word was to
the Terrans meaningless: perhaps
this Terran/Lagunan - or even all
Terran/Lagunans - were addicted to
some form of inhalant drug. In any
event he had died moments later.
His mind full of visions and
imaginings sparked by the Lagunan
prisoner's ramblings, Gerling gazed
contemplatively at the surface of the
planet as it revolved beneath him,
normally mistily visible but
sometimes totally obscured by the
densest patches in its opaque
atmosphere. On which side did right
lie? On the side of the Lagunan's,
burdened by the superstition of a
centuries-old guilt, and fearful still of
discovery and reprisals? Or on the
side of Terra, overwhelmingly
powerful and supremely confident of
her right to conquer? Should he seek
a truce? It might save lives, put an
end to the suicidal destruction each
side was wreaking on the other. But
how? If he made a move, somehow
(God only knew how) got a message
to them, would they believe or
respect it any more willingly than he
would theirs? The question was not
answerable.
At least the Lagunan's story had
given him some knowledge of his
enemy. For instance he now had
some understanding of the sight that
had met the scoutships as they
penetrated to the interior of the
Lagunans' world. The holes torn in
the planet's surface would have
released the atmosphere that the ex-
earthmen had been sustaining and
replenishing within. Presumably they
had fled to shelters long before the
invasion, leaving their city empty and
lifeless: but where were they now?
And what did their leaders plan to
deal out to him next?

Electrostatic Ion Drive
Propellent enters chamber (1) to be ionized by
removal of electrons (2). Ions are magnetically
accelerated (3) to provide thrust. Negative electrons
re-introduced to efflux (4) to prevent bottleneck
of positive ions.
34
The Breakout

Tired beyond exhaustion, kept going
only by the will to win and
responsibility for his men - for the
whole of Terran civilization -
Gerling took stock of his situation. In
the fighting so far he had lost 80 of
the 300 craft under his command. A
further 60 were now on their way to
Laguna 7. He still therefore had 140
ships with which to continue the
battle, siege, blockade - call it what
you will, though invasion it was not -
yet over two-thirds of these were
support vessels or short-range
interceptors, capable only of
inflicting painful stings rather than
substantial damage. The heavier
machinery at his disposal was old;
not necessarily outdated in
armament, armor or performance -
indeed his own ship was the fastest in
the field - but time had taken its toll
of the ships' auxiliary equipment and
the fierce fighting so far encountered
had found the weaknesses of many of
them.
Now, during this temporary lull,
there were so many requiring repairs
to faulty systems and engines that, in
order to maintain a state of readiness,
he had been forced to give orders to
restrict the number being repaired
and thus out of action at any one
time, and many of the ships orbiting
with him were awaiting what in some
cases were quite major repairs.
The Terran deep-space troop-carrier
Lima, scene of an abortive mutiny just
before the city-ships' breakout. The
delta-shaped craft also shown are
space-to-surface personnel ferries,
with which she was equipped.
35
PETER ELSON


Position of Laguna in the constellation of Hydrus.
station and had already intercepted
one convoy. Yet he began to pray for
the Lagunans to make a move.
Although the fleet had sailed with
four months' fuel and supplies, the
intense activity of the first days had
considerably reduced this estimate,
for two vital fuellers had been
destroyed and the high rate of main-
drive use had eaten far into the ships'
fuel supplies.
The days of waiting dragged on.
Reconnaissance patrols had nothing
to report. He sent in a squadron of
Ground-Attack Craft, hoping to
prompt some reaction, but although
they tore further holes in the surface
and directed a hail of missiles
through the existing holes above and
around the city, nothing stirred.
Inevitably, his crews' watchfulness
began to wane. His commanders
instituted a daily programme of drills
A Terran super-fueller, the SC 520B,
affectionately dubbed the 'stellar
cow', under fierce attack from
Lagunan interceptors. The heavy losses
of fleet support ships meant severely
restricted operational effectiveness of
the main battlefleets throughout the
war.
Of the Lagunans' position he had
to admit he knew little. Their
systems-disorientation device was
useless against ships like all of his,
which had no vital systems to
disorientate. Additionally, they could
no longer count on the element of
surprise if they chose to project
another attacking force of three-
dimensional phantoms - he was
ready for that one. And as for their
extraordinary, quite unexpected
ability to take over, or clone his
crewmembers, he had no defence. All
he could do was keep his distance
from the planet, and hope that their
need for the supplies from Laguna 7
which he had already and would
continue to blockade would either
weaken them where they lay or force
them to come into the open. His
earlier experience had shown that he
could not invade their planet without
running the risk of his own ships
turning against him. Deeply
troubled, he took a pill for four hours
of R. E. M. sleep.
The next days were uneventful.
The Lagunans remained hidden. He
received reports from Laguna 7 that
the blockading force had taken up its
36
PETER ELSON


and battle-practices, but the fire was
going out of the men. On the
messdecks of most ships there was
plaintive talk of going home, of how
they were wasting their time; while
aboard the troop-carrier Lima the
troops, confined to cramped quarters
designed only for short-term
occupation prior to a landing, made a
half-hearted and abruptly terminated
attempt at mutiny. Nine ships had
suffered irreparable engine failure,
and the whole fleet had watched
glumly as a single intergalactic tug
had collected them up and towed
them unceremoniously away, their
fretting crews still aboard.
After 22 days the waiting ended.
In the middle of the daily briefing
with the TDA on Terra, a shout had
gone up from the technician on duty
at the screens scanning Laguna 9.
Quickly cutting off his transmission,
Gerling moved over to the screens, to
be greeted by a sight which at first he
could scarcely believe.
As he watched, an entire circular
section of Laguna's surface, itself
already holed in previous attacks, and
something more than a kilometer in
diameter, was detaching itself from
the planet and moving under its own
power towards the Terran fleet. As it
cleared the lip of the crater, other
conventional ships were launched
from its underbelly.
Elsewhere, similar smaller circular
ships were taking off, each loosing a
load of smaller craft as it rose.
Gerling took an involuntary step
backwards as he saw the gathering
strength of the enemy.
Screens flickered and loudspeakers
buzzed with reports of the sighting
coming in from observers all round
the fleet. His ship's strident klaxon
called men to battle stations from
bunks, mess tables and chores, yet
Gerling himself, ringed by the
questioning, pleading faces of his
staff, remained motionless, transfixed
by the force that was pushing up to
meet him.
Then he acted, ordering the fleet to
split in two and try to outflank the
enemy. A thin line of battleships and
gunships would try to meet the
Lagunans' head-on drive, dropping
back as they came on and trying to
slow them down. On the flanks,
bombardment ships would try to
inflict what damage they could on the
mighty flying city ships.
Like an ancient warlord, Gerling led
his men into battle, his sleek,
polished ship showing its paces as it
sped through the left-flanking
formation to take up position at the
front. Throughout the fleet men sat
strapped into their combat positions,
sealed into the tiny compartments
that honeycombed the ships to enable
hit damage to be contained in as
small an area as possible.
The bombardment ships opened
fire first with nuclear fusion powered
laser lances and missiles. Several hits
were scored on the city-ships' upper
surfaces, but no fire was returned
from them. Gerling suddenly
realized that they were no more than
shields for the city-ships beneath. In
a flash he was leading a force of
interceptors towards the rear of the

Typical attack ship carried by Lagunan City Ship.
Gerling's fleet contained a motley
assortment of ancient strike craft, of
which this was a typically
extraordinary example, being an Atmo-
Interceptor captured from the Proxima
Centaurians during the twenty-first
century. It is here seen attacking a
two-man scoutship.
38
BOB LAYZELL

enemy formation, hoping to strike up
into the underside of the city-ships,
where he thought their weakness
must lie.
Now they were in the thick of
battle, the blackness of space lit up as
far as the eye could see by the
numberless weapons of the two sides.
Approaching the belly of the first
city-ship, Gerling's detachment was
met with a hail of fire that within
seconds had drained their defence
shields, and as he saw the first hits
penetrating the exhausted shields of
other Terran craft he ordered his
spearhead force to swing away back
into the ranks of the Terran left-
flanking group.
Now the battleships and gunships
directly ahead of the Lagunan force
had begun to drop back, firing all the
way. One, the ageing battleship
Umberto, veteran of countless
colonial conquests and for a century a
symbol of Terran supremacy, had
been disabled, Gerling saw.
Incapable of escape, it was rammed
by an advancing city-ship and
exploded with colossal force. The
city-ship reeled, sections of both
upper surface and substructure
breaking off and tumbling into the
ranks of the following craft, causing
untold destruction.
Gerling saw his chance.
Temporarily slowed and scattered by
the partial disintegration of the
leading city-ship, the Lagunans were
vulnerable. Taking with him the
swiftest craft available, he raced
round to face the oncoming Lagunan
force, then, ordering the battleships
and gunships to follow through,
drove a thin wedge into their
crumbling front. For a few moments,
as the spearhead force took
devastating advantage of the enemy's
temporary division, it looked as if the
Lagunan advance might be halted.
But the city-ships were so vast,
and capable of withstanding so many
hits, that it became clear that nothing
Gerling had in his armory of ships
or tactics could stop them. They bore
on through, Gerling's ships like
angry bees buzzing around them,
gradually leaving the battle behind as
their escorts turned to confront their
pursuers. Soon it became clear to
Gerling that he could gain nothing
by continuing to attack. The city-
ships were now accelerating rapidly
into deep space, while their
rearguard was slowing him down
more and more. Meantime damage
reports were coming in from all over
the fleet, and many ships had already
dropped back, some disabled, others
unable to maintain the offensive.
Reluctantly, he gave the order to
cease firing, and watched as the
Lagunan escorts wheeled round and
swept off after their charges, leaving
the Terran forces alone on the
suddenly silent and dark battlefield.
Gerling's sense of failure was
great. The Lagunans, far from
submitting to his relentless blockade,
had broken out in force, taking their
cities with them, and he, who had left
Terra with a massive invasion fleet,
was left hanging in space in company
with a severely reduced collection of
battered, dead and dying ships.
He was jolted out of his thoughts
by a violent lurch, accompanied by
an agonizing screech of metal.
Damage signals flashed on the
console before him. Looking up at
the screen, he was just in time to see
the lifeless wreck of a Terran
interceptor, its port side a jagged
mess of fused metal, drifting away
after its collision and turning gently
over and over. Surveying his fleet, he
saw hundreds of pieces of wreckage,
large and small, any of which might
collide with others of his craft. At his
command, the Terran ships began to
move out under minimum power,
their defence shields at full strength
to ward off the debris, weaving to
and fro as they sought to avoid the
larger obstacles.
Gerling's ship for the time being
was unable to move, her stern tubes
crumpled by the collision with the
wrecked interceptor. While damage
crews crawled over the rear section,
clamped to the hull by electro- 
magnetic boots, attempting to cut
away the twisted tubes and thus
enable the main drive to be used at
least at low power, a bombardment
ship edged gradually into position to
take up a tow, and soon the ship
began to slide gently through the
battlefield. The damage crews
hurried back into the ship as she did
so, for to stay outside while on the
move meant risking being crushed or
carried away by drifting debris, but
once clear of the worst resumed their
work.
Even more extraordinary is this missile
carrier, a short-lived design of which
only two were produced, this being the
second prototype. There were no
volunteers to pilot it. It is seen here in
the melee of the city-ships' breakout.

40

A Desperate Race
A hospital ship limps back towards
Terra under reduced power, after
suffering severe fuel leakage in an
unprovoked attack by Lagunan craft.
Later, when her fuel stocks were
exhausted, she drifted off course and
her whereabouts are not now known.
It is presumed that all the injured
aboard and the crew perished.
With the enemy now hopelessly far
ahead and the remnants of his fleet in
any event scarcely capable of taking
up the pursuit, Gerling regrouped
his ships and called a conference of
his commanders. Some came in their
launches; others, their launches
destroyed, resorted to the lifeboats;
and yet others, quite without
auxiliary transport, got a ride from
their more fortunate colleagues. The
conference itself took place in the
wardroom of the last surviving
interceptor carrier, Lyons, whose
hangars, formerly crammed with
shiny craft, now contained but a
handful of blackened and dented
veterans.
The meeting took place in
conditions of utmost security, for
what Gerling had to say was grave.
With selected members of his staff,
he had prepared an analysis of the
situation which gave little cause for
optimism - or even hope. Fuel stocks
were perilously low, and the
remaining fuellers had little left to
offer. Had every ship been capable of
heading homewards under its own
power, all should have made it,
though by the slimmest of margins.
But many ships were under tow, and
the extra fuel that the towing ships
would use in powering themselves
and their charges earthwards might
leave them powerless to effect a re- 
entry into Terra's atmosphere.
Besides this, there were ships with
shattered machinery of all kinds:
some had reduced generating
capacity, others had damaged oxygen
plants, others faulty water recycling
systems. Few were wholly intact.
There were space bases and
planetary bases within reach, and his
calculations had shown that the
chances of bringing all his craft safely
to one of these were good, yet the
message from Terra was
unequivocal. The Terran
intergalactic tracking system had
picked up the Lagunan city-ship
force shortly after the battle, and
projections of its course had clearly
indicated that it was headed for
Terra. Gerling had therefore been
ordered to return with all speed
direct to Terra, leaving behind those
ships that would be unable to make
sufficient speed to maintain
formation. These would be left to
their own devices to make their way
either to the nearest base or back to
Terra. Gerling knew that, without
the assistance of the fully-operational
craft, many of the damaged and
disabled ships might not reach safety,
but try they must.
This was the essence of Gerling's
announcement, and it was grimly
received by the assembled
commanders. Gerling himself would
remain aboard the Lyons, which
would become the new flagship, and
if any of the crews of the homebound
craft was depleted, men would be
transferred from the damaged ships.
All the others would remain aboard
their own vessels.
Gerling's personal instruction to
the commanders of the crippled craft
was to stick together, so that crews
could be transferred from any ships
that became totally unserviceable

42

starvation before they could be
picked up.
Meanwhile Gerling was having his
share of trouble. Though his force
was gaining on the Lagunans, he had
already lost two ships through fuel
exhaustion, while another had been
severely damaged by an asteroid
during a temporary defence shield
failure. All three he had had to leave
behind to fend for themselves,
sparing a solitary tug for their rescue.
Try as he might, however, it
became increasingly clear as the days
dragged by that he would never catch
the Lagunans before they reached
Terra. He might conceivably try
firing some long-range missiles, but
these were intended for ground
attack and could easily be intercepted
and deflected by the Lagunan ships if
they identified them early enough.
This was the situation that he
discussed with the Chiefs of Staff at
the TDA Control Center during his
next transmission. If he was going to
be unable even to slow the Lagunan
advance, then Terra would have to
bear the full brunt of their onslaught.
should one day be fully told, but here
we can say little. Within 48 hours of
departure 90 men aboard the gunship
Malmo had perished in frightful
agony as the atmospheric pressure
aboard had sunk to zero, the pumps
no longer able to keep ahead of an
ever growing split in the hull through
which the pressure was leaking.
The dead ship had stayed with the
formation for hours until a change of
course left it ploughing mindlessly
forward on its own. This was only
the first catastrophe to strike. Two
other ships were blasted apart by
reactor failures; another fell victim to
an internal fire, triggered by
damaged circuitry, which swept like a
tornado through the ship, sucking up
the oxygen and thus asphyxiating
those that it had not consumed with
flames. Onlookers stared helplessly as
survivors ejected themselves from
the emergency airlocks, most of them
without powerpacks, and flailed
wildly in space in the midst of the
formation, unable to reach the safety
of another ship. Rescue launches
found a handful alive - the others
had died of their burns or of oxygen
into ships that were at least still alive.
In this way the greatest number of
lives would be saved.
Faces lengthened as he read out
the list of craft that would stay
behind. One or two of the
unfortunate commanders
remonstrated, others claimed their
ships were capable of making the
homeward journey, but Gerling
remained inflexible and the meeting
ended in silence. It was not long
before the homebound force
departed, main drives blazing, every
ship shuddering under the strain of
maximum acceleration in a
determined bid to catch the long-
gone Lagunan force.
Behind them receded the sight of
their crippled cousins, whose
commanders were at that moment
explaining to their shocked officers
and crews the facts of their situation.
Later, huddled together as if for
comfort, and with Gerling's former
flagship, itself partially disabled,
forced to tow a silent gunship, the
battered remnants of the fleet limped
away. For the sake of the hundreds
who died on this voyage, its story

Terran Lifeboat.
1 Variable drive venturi. 2 Solar panels. 3 Airlock.
4 Signal Reflector. 5 Reactor Room.
44
The Defence of Terra

Back on Terra preparations were
nearly complete - in so far as they
could be. The only ships available for
the defence of the home planet,
though great in number and in
power, were of the fully automated
type that had suffered such terrible
indignities at the outset of the
Laguna war. Who knew whether the
approaching Lagunan force would
bring to bear the weapon that had
effectively deprived Terran
Commanders of the ability to control
their ships ? Such steps as were
possible were taken to ease the
difficulties of manual control aboard
these ships, but the TDA chiefs
knew that these would prove
inadequate for sustained combat and,
more importantly, would actually
handicap the performance of the
ships, depriving them of their usual
agility and speed of response.
Apart from the preparations being
made for the flight in Terra's orbit
and her atmosphere, steps needed to
be taken to protect civilians and their
property on the ground, as well as
vital installations. For the benefit of
the civilians who, to avert mass
panic, had been fed a much watered-
down version of the true facts, the
ancient nuclear fall-out shelters of
the mid-twentieth century were re- 
opened and equipped, while as many
people as could be accommodated
were shipped off to the Moon, Mars
and nearby planets and space bases in
A mobile monitor station orbiting Mars
during the tracking of the approach of
the city-ships.
45
PETER ELSON

requisitioned civil spaceliners and
rudimentary-converted freighters.
As a further precaution,
accommodation was prepared in the
hundreds of deep-ocean farms and
the mile-deep tunnels of the
intercontinental vactrains, just as the
underground railways of London had
sheltered thousands during the city's
bombing by German aircraft in the
Second World War (1939-1945 AD).
Yet the TDA council were only
too painfully aware of the
inadequacies of the measures they
could take to defend Terra and
protect her inhabitants, and as the
days passed their doubts turned into
sleepless fears. Nevertheless there
were other, more aggressive moves
that they could make before the
Lagunans came within range of
Terra, no matter how awed they
might be by the size and speed of the
Lagunan city-ships.
The first was to organize a series of
assault forces to meet the Lagunans
at different stages of their long flight,
the second to mine the perimeters of
Terra's orbit. The former expedient
proved largely ineffectual, for at no
single point could a sufficiently large
force be assembled to seriously
challenge the Lagunans. True, a
number of the enemy's escort vessels
were destroyed and a large number of
hits were scored on the city-ships,
but nothing seemed to slow or
weaken their advance. As for the
mining operation, this was rather
more successful. The mines were in
this case missiles rocketed into orbit
in vast numbers and positioned in
such a way that any craft travelling in
a straight line could not fail to make
contact with one of them. While to
allow for any evasive tactic the enemy
might employ, the missiles could be
instantly reactivated to make a
positive attack on any craft in their
vicinity. These missiles would
plainly be vulnerable to the
influences of the Lagunan control-
disorientation system, but the TDA
Chiefs rightly reckoned that they
could cause substantial destruction
even when out of control in the midst
of the hostile fleet.
Their prediction did indeed prove accurate. When the leading Lagunan ships penetrated the perimeter of the minefield, the mines were allowed to remain inert. Then, at the very
moment when the last ship had
slipped in, the mines were activated.
Sure enough, they instantly ran
amok, but in doing so found a
number of targets. Others collided
with each other, their combined
explosion sending colossal shock
waves and spraying the invaders with
jagged pieces of hurtling metal.
Yet, though they reeled, staggered
and slowed under the onslaught, the
mighty city-ships came on. As they
emerged from the inner edge of the
minefield they were seen to
manoeuvre into orbit, their
remaining escorts gathering around
them and then nudging gently into
apertures in their undersides.
This movement gave the TDA
Chiefs food for thought. Up till this
moment they had not known whether
the city-ships would be capable of
operating within Earth's atmosphere.
Anchored in Terra's orbit they
appeared to present less of a threat
than they might have done if they
had descended through the
atmosphere and made a direct assault
on the ground. Yet what they
actually did gave little cause for
relief.
Within minutes they had launched
a first wave of ground-attack missiles.
As these raced earthwards, traces
were picked up of the dreaded signals
that had disabled Keyes' fleet off
Laguna 9, and technicians
monitoring the electronic
mechanisms of Terra's own anti- 
missile missiles, now readied for
firing, saw that their guidance
systems were being affected by the
Lagunan signals.
Powerless to respond, Terran
command waited helplessly as the
first missiles ploughed devastatingly
into Terra's cities and defence
installations. Yet even as they fell,
blast-shutters were sliding apart,
revealing the outlines of craft large
and small, readying themselves for
the counter-attack. Orders were for
all available ships to attack the city-
ships direct, and attempt, by sheer
weight of numbers, to disable or
destroy the enemy's strongholds.
One force, consisting of three
gunships escorted by over 20
interceptors, was detailed to seek out
the source of the control -
disorientation signals and silence
them.
The North African fortress city of
Tobruk, guarding the perimeter of the
great Saharan marshalling yards, under
heavy fire from a Lagunan city-ship.
This fortress was knocked out in the
earliest stages of the engagement and
has not since been rebuilt.

47
At the word of command, 600
assorted ships lifted ponderously off
their launch pads, crews fighting to
retain control of their clumsy manual
systems, forced to make countless
adjustments during every second of
the lift-off in order to avert disaster.
Now they tore even faster upwards,
searing through the atmosphere, the
combined roar of their engines
sending reverberations through the
fabric of every building and the crust
of the earth itself, so that deep down
in the vactrain tunnels evacuees
stirred questioningly to the deep
rumble of sound.
As speed increased the difficulty of
manual control lessened, but soon
the Lagunans were responding, first
with missiles, then with interceptors
and finally, as the Terran ships came
within range, with lasers of
unprecedented power. The groups
assigned to each of the city-ships
were travelling in loose-knit
formation in order to make it hard
for the Lagunans to concentrate their
fire effectively, yet the damage they
wrought was considerable.
As defence shields weakened, more
and more Terran ships were hit, but
now they were close enough to
engage the city-ships directly. For
the first time since the appearance of
these colossi, the TDA Chiefs were
able to obtain via their on-board
observers some concrete information
about them. The city-ships were
approximately circular in
configuration, with an upper surface
irregular in its formation and
constructed to resemble an ordinary
expanse of the surface of Laguna 9
itself. The lower half was deeper than
the upper, being approximately a
very shallow cone. The diameter of
each ship was about 1000 meters, the
depth from top to bottom
approximately 300 meters, though
there appeared to be quite substantial
variations from one ship to another.
The upper surface appeared to be
armored indeed no Terran
weapon proved capable of
penetrating this armor-but itself
was not armed, the full firepower of
each ship being contained in the
lower section. This, apart from the
apertures through which the
interceptors entered and left, offered
no projections and was constructed
on a honeycomb pattern, there being
A Terran fast strike ship hit by debris
from an exploding city-ship, itself
victim of a missile penetrating an
interceptor-bay aperture.

no indication of the siting of the
armament or the functions of the
various sections of the underside.
What the Terran craft were able to
confirm was that this lower portion
was susceptible to damage,
particularly so if its armament
officers were able to place a missile
through one of the interceptor-bay
apertures. In fact two city-ships
quite unexpectedly exploded on
being hit in this way, though 17
Terran craft, in addition to a large
number of Lagunan interceptors,
were destroyed by the heat of the
blast or by being struck by debris
from the explosions.
Nevertheless, these two lucky
victories far from compensated for
the appalling losses being suffered by
the Terran side or for the damage
and loss of life still being inflicted by
the city-ships on Terra itself. The
turning-point came when the
gunship task force located the source
of the control-disorientation signals.
Taking advantage of the
Lagunans' concentration on the
battle in progress, the task force had
slipped through, and by circling in
powered orbit above the city-ships
had soon homed in on the signal.
This was emanating from a pair of
previously unseen craft equipped
with enormous transmitting
antennae, guarded by two interceptor
carriers. On identification of the
approaching Terran craft, the
carriers sent a large force of
interceptors to hold the Terrans at
bay, while the transmitter ships fired
their main drives and began to
accelerate away.
Aware of the urgency of their
mission, the task force refused to
reduce speed or break formation to
meet the Lagunan interceptors, and
made as if to plough straight through
without wavering. In the event two
of the three gunships collided with
Lagunan craft and more than half of
the Terran interceptors met a similar
fate or were destroyed by Lagunan
fire, but the surviving gunship broke
through and, while summoning help,
took up the pursuit of the fleeing
transmitter-ships.
Tube launched Nuclear Missile Type TMX40
1 Warhead. 2 Steering jets. 3 Hyperwave
Detector. 4 Spring loaded Target Scanner.
5 Minipak Nuclear Driver.

48


The Lagunan disorientation-signal
transmitter-ships at the moment of
their detection and sighting by the
Terran gunship taskforce. They were
destroyed by interceptors after a brief
pursuit into deep space, and their loss
spelt the end of Lagunan supremacy in
the final battle.
Firing at extreme range, the
gunship's main missile armament
succeeded in damaging the antennae
of one ship, but both sped on until
intercepted on the port beam by
Terran interceptors coming to the
aid of the gunships. The transmitter-
ships fell easy prey to the
interceptors, both being quickly
reduced to lifeless hulks.
With fully automatic navigation
and armament control now restored,
the Terran ships could now utilize
their full performance, and as
reinforcements, including the
battered remnants of Gerling's fleet,
now began to arrive from Terran
stations and bases in the nearer parts
of the galaxy, the battle began to be
dominated by the Terran forces.
While on the ground fires raged,
buildings toppled and emergency
service crews and vehicles strove to
save life and property, the conflict in
near space was so fierce, and involved
so many craft, that the blinding light
of explosions could be seen with the
naked eye from the surface.
Beleaguered on all sides, and with
their escorts now nearly all out of
action, the city-ships could not last
much longer, yet their commanders
were evidently not going to accept
the deaths of trapped animals, for
suddenly, and in unison, the city-
ships' main drives spat flame and the
monstrous craft began to gather
speed in a descent towards Terra.
With ships firing on them from all
sides, they pressed heedlessly
downwards, brushing aside any craft
that lay in their path. As they drew
nearer to the surface, they began to
level out, and were soon hurtling
along a few hundred meters up, firing
at their pursuers and spraying death
and destruction at everything
beneath them.
Yet their end was near. The first
sign of it was when one of the
surviving eight, overflying the
conurbations of the Great Lakes at a
speed in excess of Mach 2, began to
smoke. When a report of this
50
ANGUS MCKIE


A city-ship slices through one of the
TTA's interstellar communication
pylons during its mad career across the
surface of Terra. Although not
primarily military in nature, the
beacons played an important part in
interfleet signalling.
observation reached the TDA
Control Center, it was quickly
realized that the city-ships were
beginning to burn up, heated to
impossible temperatures by the
friction at high speeds in dense
atmospheres. But they showed no
signs of slowing or breaking off the
action, and orders went out for them
to be brought down in the oceans, for
the crash landing of a burning city-
ship would create appalling havoc.
Terran ships broke off and then
reformed in wolf packs to meet the
enemy at sea, and six of the city-
ships, of which three were by now
huge discs of white fire, were
subjected to such a bombardment
that each crashed into the ocean
within 1000 kilometers of
interception.
As they fell, the sea erupted
around them in vast mushrooming
clouds of searing steam that obscured
their terrible end from view. A
seventh frustrated the efforts of its
attackers; eventually, after a heart-
stopping east-to-west traverse of the
densely populated North American
continent, slicing harmlessly though
spectacularly into the abandoned
twentieth-century petroleum
installations in Alaska. The entire
area to a radius of 2000 kilometers
was instantly shrivelled by the
intense heat, even rocks being fused
together.
The eighth and last surviving city-
ship had so far avoided destruction,
suddenly slowing and coming to a
halt over Peking, with its 150 million
population, nerve center and
commercial center of Asia. Powerless
to attack lest they kill countless
civilians below, the Terran ships
hung back, circling slowly around
their prey and gradually closing in as
its firepower slackened and
dwindled. After four hours, as the
huge craft still hung motionless over
the city, no solution had been found
by the TDA Chiefs to its threatening
presence. It seemed to them that the
city-ship's commander had only
three choices: surrender, a desperate
solo bid to reach space and then
home, or a suicidal act of vengeance -
the destruction of Peking by diving,
Kamikaze-style, into the heart of the
city.
Speculation increased when a
number of robot repair vehicles
emerged from the ship and began to
bustle jerkily around attending to the
worst of its wounds. This activity
suggested that the commander might
be preparing to make a run for home,
a view reinforced by the momentary
reactivation first of its weaponry and
second of its engines - just as if these
were being tested prior to action. But
nothing ensued, the ship lying
thenceforth silent and motionless.
Then, out of the blue, came a
message - an announcement that the
wounded and the other members of
the crew would now be leaving the
ship; a request that they be not
attacked as their launches clear the
ship and make for a landing-place,
and a request for acknowledgement
and acceptance. Acknowledgement
was given, but with a statement that
the TDA would consider the request
for safe passage to Terra and respond
in due course.
Once again the great ship lay silent
as the TDA Chiefs conferred. After
30 minutes their answer came: the
crew could have safe passage
provided the ship moved, under
escort, over the Pacific before
releasing the launches. The city-ship
commander acceded to this demand,
and moments later his mighty craft
started gently eastwards, surrounded
on all sides by watchful Terran ships.
At the appointed place, two hours
later, the city-ship slowed and
stopped. Then the launches
appeared, firing white starshell to
signify surrender.
While they were being shepherded
away towards Peking spaceport,
TDA craft made to come alongside
the city-ship to take possession, but
before they reached it it suddenly
tilted sideways and then, turning
slowly over, dropped out of the sky.
Striking the surface of the Pacific
with an impact that threw water
hundreds of feet into the air and
created a massive destructive wave,
its hull was blown apart by multiple
explosions and then started to burn.
Four hours later, defying the efforts
of salvage experts, it finally
disappeared beneath the waves,
taking its secrets to the bottom of the
ocean.

53
The Final Victory?
The immediate threat to the Terran
Federation's stronghold had died
with the capitulation and scuttling of
the last city-ship, yet there remained
the possibility that the peoples of
Laguna 9 and 7 might wish to pursue
hostilities. To put paid to any such
intentions it was decided that a
further force should be sent to
Laguna 9 to conquer or destroy,
while the blockade on Laguna 7
should be maintained until this
operation was over, at which point
the Laguna 9 taskforce would
proceed on to Laguna 7.
Gerling, because of his experience
of Laguna 9 and its peoples, was
automatically selected to lead the
taskforce, and within hours of the
decision, had transferred in mid-
space to his new flagship. The voyage
was entirely uneventful. Once the
force was in orbit around the planet,
detector vessels were sent in under
escort to report signs of activity and
to test for the presence of the now-
dreaded control-disorientation
signals. On both counts their report
was negative. Yet as a further
precaution Gerling sent in a patrol of
scoutships, instructed to descend to
the surface and, if unchallenged, to
penetrate beneath the surface and
report.
Once again, no evidence of activity
was found, and so, not without a
little trepidation, Gerling brought his
taskforce down on the surface of the
planet. Here reconnaissance parties
found only the wreckage and the
dead of earlier battles. But on
entering the subterranean zone an

54
TONY ROBERTS
appalling sight met their eyes.
All around them lay countless
dead, every corpse disfigured by
repulsive fungal growths. In two
days of searching, among all the tens
of thousands, no one was found alive.
The nature of the disease, on
analysis, tallied with that which had
claimed their Lagunan prisoner
before the break-out. Mystified,
Gerling headed his taskforce for
Laguna 7, leaving behind where they
lay the sprawled bodies of his former
adversaries on their dead and
shattered planet. Later, on the sister
planet, he was to learn the truth. The
cargoes which he had so successfully
and relentlessly blockaded contained
neither food nor fuel nor oxygen.
The freighters so anxiously awaited
carried a specific anti-bacterial agent
which, pumped into the atmosphere
of Laguna 9's cities and settlements,
prevented the onset of an otherwise
inevitable and fatal disease whose
outward sign was a rapid fungal
growth on the skin. In the end, it was
not the armed might of Terra that
had silenced the proud and
indomitable Lagunans, but the
unseen enemy in their own natural
world.
Within days of Gerling's landing,
the first detachments of the
Occupation Force began to arrive to
begin the grim task of salvage,
decontamination and the imposition
of Federal Law. Now that the long
Gerling's taskforce at rest on Laguna 9
during the mopping-up operation that
never was. Note Laguna 7, source of
Laguna 9's vital bacterial inhibitor, low
on the horizon. A transport is bringing
in supplies to the ground forces.

the original Lagunans had been
highly developed before their
extinction by the rebels, how could
this explain the fact that none of the
enemy equipment was older than
50 years?
Suddenly awake, Gerling tried to
thrust out of his mind the conviction
that was growing there. Something
or someone, either far out in space or
lurking within the planet itself must
have assisted the men of Laguna 9!
But what and why? More
importantly, where were they now?
Perhaps at that very moment, some
sinister power was gathering its
strength out in the dark vacuum to
strike again at the Terran Federation.
A sense of despair swept over him as
he closed his eyes and drifted into a
fitful sleep, for how can one prepare
for a battle that might never come
against an enemy one does not know?
battle was over, Gerling felt only his
exhaustion and a growing sense of
futility. It was with relief that he
handed over command to his young
and rather awe-struck replacement,
and boarded the ship to take him
home to a hero's welcome.
Despite the numbing fatigue,
something at the back of his mind
was bothering him as the craft
carried him rapidly into the darkness
of space. He opened his eyes and
stared at the distant globe of
Laguna 9 as it swam in the viewport.
From here there were no signs to be
seen of the death and devastation that
lay around it. As his mind dully
drifted back over the past horrors,
the niggling doubt began to surface.
How had the descendants of a band
of mutineers achieved the
technological level they had
demonstrated, in 200 years? Even if


TDA Troopers and Kit
1 Standard Uniform. 2 Battle dress
56
Part Two - Conquest of Space
The Nimrodian Club
Robin Maxwell awoke to the melodic
tones of the autovalet and irritably
punched the alarm cancel key. 'Black
coffee, ' he groaned into his pillow,
and two seconds later an apologetic
bleep from the rotund machine
announced its arrival in the delivery
slot. He fumbled for the control
panel and shifted the bed into an
upright position. Cradling the drink
in his hands he tried to recall last
night's party with little success.
After a moment of intense
concentration he shrugged and
sipped the coffee. What did it matter
anyway? He had probably laughed,
eaten, danced and drunk just as he
had the night before that, and the one
before that, and as he probably
would tonight. Somehow the
prospect was not appealing and he
tossed the half empty cup down the
service chute with a petulant flourish.
He turned his attention to the day
ahead. 'Anything on?' he asked and
lay back as the modulated voice of
the autovalet recited. 'Item: Maxwell
Textiles Board meeting, attendance
invited. Item: Fitting for control
couch of ground cruiser ordered,
attendance invited. Item: Aunt
Helga's birthday, acknowledgement
advised. Item: Davina Blakely's free-
fall party, attendance invited.
Item: Tristram Keeler-Finch's Skula
hunt, attendance invited. Item... '
As the list droned on Robin
sighed, swung his legs off the couch
and sat with his head in his hands.
He really ought to put in an
appearance at the meeting but really
couldn't face sitting in the Three-
Dee booth next to the bedroom
listening to the projected images of
the administrator telling him how
incredibly rich he was and how much
richer he would be by the next board
meeting. The list of invitations
seemed endless and the valet's voice
tedious. 'That's enough' he said,
'Send apologies to the Board, tell the
fitters to call next week, send
something suitable to the old bat,
decline Davina's invite and all the
rest. Tell Tristram I'm on my way
and get my hunting stuff ready. '
With that he eased himself off the
bed and wandered into the cleanser.
By the time he emerged his clothes
were set out and the valet was
plugged into the service circuit
organizing the loading of his jet-
sporter. Half an hour later he was
cruising in the local lane to mid-
France and with the craft locked into
the flight beam for his destination he
sat down in the small saloon,
punched a 'Fizzer' and sipped it
staring idly through the viewport.
Earth was lovelier now than she
had been for a long time. The great
industrial exodus of the mid twenty-
second century had left her a
comparatively empty world. Still the
administrative center of the Solar
System, it had nevertheless become
something of a home for the very
wealthy and a holiday resort for off-
worlders.
The journey from Switzerland
took less than an hour, and feeling
the shift in direction as the landing
beam locked onto the jet, Robin
settled back into the seat clamps. A
57
their close friends had formed a
society called the Nimrodian Club.
Each member was allotted a number
which was fed into a computer. On
each anniversary of the formation of
the society two numbers would be
selected at random by the computer.
Those members holding those
numbers then had one week to hunt
down and kill their opposite. If by
the end of that time neither had been
killed, the remaining members were
sworn to find both and execute them.
A draw would only be declared if
both men were so seriously injured as
to be unable to continue.
The first draw took place on June
22nd, 2314 AD and the names paired
in this bizarre lottery were Robin
Maxwell and a certain Carl Hinton.
A week was allowed for affairs to be
put in order and preparations made,
then both men were taken to a
neutral territory in a small
transporter equipped with two one-
man service craft. At an agreed time
both airlocks were opened and the
duel had begun.
The two ships were unarmed and
both men immediately disappeared
in opposite directions, Hinton
heading straight to a thickly wooded
area about three miles from the
parent ship. Robin set down on a
rocky outcrop very close by and
plotted the landing position of the
other ship. As soon as he was sure
that his opponent was staying there
he moved his equipment outside and
began checking it. He was taking
only the most primitive of weapons.
No beamer or lasergun, no locator set
or detector gear, nothing that used
electronics and was therefore
detectable. Just a plastisteel crossbow
and hunting knife, a coil of Thorlon
rope and a camouflage smock,
thermobaffled to prevent his
bodyheat showing on a locator set.
He looked at his hands which seemed
steady enough, took a deep breath
and walked away from the
comforting bulk of the ship and
scrambled down the jumble of rocks
to the forest floor.
It was about four miles to where
Hinton had come down, and as he
walked he tried to imagine what his
adversary would be doing. Knowing
Hinton's enthusiasm for gadgetry
Robin was relying on him to set
himself up in a fixed position
slight bump and the clamps slid into
their recesses. He stretched, drained
his glass and stood up. As he
gathered up his gear the door hissed
open and Tristram looked up at him.
They chatted as they strolled to the
hovercar waiting beside the apron
and were soon speeding toward the
private hunting grounds where the
rest of the party waited. On arrival
they broke-up into pairs and set off
into the dense woods in search of the
wild and evil-tempered Skulas which
had been imported from Sirius
Three to stock the Keeler-Finch
estate.
As the two friends pushed into the
undergrowth they set their beamers
to maximum, checked rechargers and
Tristram tuned in his locator set. A
single point of light indicated their
position and as the rest of the screen
was dark he switched the set off.
'We'll have to walk further in, I'm
afraid. The last hunt thinned them
out a bit. ' They came eventually to a
small clearing at the foot of a slope
and settled themselves beside a fallen
tree to wait. Robin sat watching
Tristram flick the locator on and off
and noted the growing nervousness of
the others. In contrast he felt almost
nothing and suddenly realized that
he was actually very bored. The
prospect of a Skula breaking into the
clearing hardly stirred him at all.
They would know from the locator
when it would happen, their beamers
would be armed, they would fire and
the beast would fall down. They
would then wait for the same thing to
happen all over again. 'I'm bored, ' he
grumbled. 'In fact, come to think of
it, I am always bored. '
That was when it all began. Over
the next months Robin Maxwell
devoted considerable time to
contemplating this revelation and an
idea, at first an unsought fragment of
thought, began to take shape as a
plan. To Robin and many others like
him, risk played no real part in his
life, and the more he imagined
experiencing an actual threat to life
and limb, the more excited he
became. It was not long before it
became an obsession, until one day
he was scanning a videotape story set
long ago in the eighteenth century
and a reference to a duel made
everything fall into place. Within two
weeks Robin, Tristram and several of
Robin Maxwell pilots his personal
craft, an Avery Skysporter, above the
gigantic Maxwell Textiles Complex.
Immense wealth and endless leisure
led him along a dangerous path.

58

surrounded by all his gear waiting for
the hunt to come to him. He knew
that a considerable amount of
equipment had been loaded into the
other ship and it would fit what he
knew of the other's personality.
Hinton had always been a rather
reticent character and Robin had
been surprised when he had shown
so much enthusiasm for the idea of
the Nimrodian Club. Suddenly he
wondered if he had made the right
decision in not taking any proper
equipment and a startling feeling of
loneliness swept over him.
Loneliness he recognized, but with it
was a curious and unsettling
sensation which was new to him.
He stopped walking as a bitter
taste grew in his mouth, and an
emptiness sucked at his belly. It was
fear, it was really fear! He could feel
the blood thudding through the
arteries in his neck and his lips felt
dry and salty. He wanted to run back
to the ship very much and found
himself backing towards the slope.
He stopped and clenched his fists
breathing deeply. This was what he
had wanted. He couldn't go back
now, if Hinton didn't get him the
others would. Anyway, it must be the
same for the other man, he thought,
and the idea relaxed him a little. The
first thing to do was to find out for
certain what Hinton was doing.
Taking a grip on the crossbow he
stepped forward again.
An hour later, the light started to
fade and Robin slowed his pace,
listening to the sounds of the wood
and watching for movement among
the trees. He placed his tackle at the
foot of a large tree and climbed up
until he could see the heavily wooded
patch where Hinton had landed, only
about half a mile away. Descending
again, he walked in a wide circle
around his target before moving in.
Once more he scaled a tree and could
just make out the gleaming hull of
Hinton's ship. His heart was
pounding now and he could feel the
sweat on his body. But the fear was
tempered with excitement and he felt
more alert and aware than he had on
any Skula hunt.
The ship was lying at the foot of a
rise and Robin was suddenly certain
that Hinton was waiting up there. He
crept towards the ship, his hands
shaking with the feeling of
exhilaration, and lay down on the
edge of the clearing where it rested.
There was no sign of Hinton so he
crawled to the hull and edged round
to the airlock, his bow at the ready.
He pressed the key and the lock slid
open. A quick glance inside the
empty craft and he leapt in and
headed straight towards the control
console. The generator whined as he
hit the buttons to create as much
interference as possible, before
ducking out again and sprinting back
into the trees.
Positioning himself within
bowshot of the vessel in case Hinton
decided to cut the power, Robin
waited until it was dusk before
moving round to the reverse side of
the hillock. Slowly and soundlessly
he inched his way up the slope. He
felt almost part of the moist earth,
every sense alive and straining to
detect anything that was out of
context. Every nerve-ending tingled
as he inched his dirt-streaked face
around a fallen trunk. He ducked
back breathing heavily, the sweat
stinging in his eyes.
In the gloom below him a dark
figure was bent over the dim flicker
of a locator screen. A broad-beam
blaster rested on the lip of the slight
hollow, and he could hear the soft
ticking of a thermoscanner as he
shifted the bow. Holding his breath,
he carefully winched back the woven
string and slid the heavy bolt into
place. His pulse seemed deafening as
he eased the bow over the log, and
squinted through the sights at the
shape below. As the feeling of
triumph blazed in him he squeezed
the trigger, the barbed flight sang to
its mark and the shape folded silently
over the viewscreen.
With a shout he sprang to his feet
and ran headlong to the hollow,
stumbling over the loose soil,
sobbing as the tension flooded out of
him. He slid into the ring of
equipment and looked down at where
his bolt lay entangled in Hinton's
cloak. But Hinton wasn't there. He
stood staring, numb, the crossbow
dangling from his hand. There was a
small sound behind him and a voice
said softly, 'Sorry Robin'. He spun
round, his eyes wide, as the
laserbeam hummed and cut him in
half.
The airlock hissed open and two small
ships sped out, heading in opposite
directions. The first duel of the
Nimrodian Club was about to take
place, with Robin Maxwell as one of
the combatants.

60


The Duel at Sisuphos Three
One of the richest mineral sources
yet discovered in the Galaxy is the
middle of the three planets circling
Procyon, about ten light years from
Earth. The atmosphere is just
breathable and the mass exerts a
gravitational pull of about 1. 5 G with
a temperature range just tolerable for
humanoid life forms. Conditions on
Sisuphos were far from comfortable.
It was dry and bleak, scoured by hot
gusty winds which drove the fine
sand which covered so much of the
surface into every crevice. The only
living organisms native to the planet
were varieties of lichen and isolated
patches of scrubby grasses.
The men who mined the riches of
this hellish world came for many
reasons. The pay was one, but those
who came for the huge salaries rarely
stayed, or lived, long enough to
return as wealthy men, and those that
lasted were more often than not,
unable to return to more agreeable
societies. Sisuphos was outside the
law simply because no-one could be
enticed there to enforce it, and it had
become something of a refuge for
those who were outcasts from more
civilized worlds. Disputes and
disagreements between individuals
were resolved by whatever means
came to hand, and duels were
commonplace. One such event,
however, became legendary.
Each of the many mining camps
had its own unofficial hierarchy.
Camps 3 and 4 were led by two
brothers who, having made
themselves unwelcome almost
everywhere in known space, finally
settled on Sisuphos. Originally both
of the Gruber brothers had signed on
at Camp 3 and lost no time asserting
their harsh authority over miners and
managers alike. It was inevitable that
the camp became too small for them
both and the younger brother, Hans,
moved to Camp 4 to pursue his own
fortunes. Although the basic wages
on Sisuphos were high, the real
money lay in production bonuses,
and the two men drove their fellows
mercilessly, taking not only their
own, but also a proportion of the
bonuses earned by the others in their
crews.
One day a massive new lode was
discovered almost midway between
the two camps and both brothers
raced to the site, arriving at the same
time. The argument became a brawl
which became a pitched battle
between the two groups, fought with
anything which came to hand.
Eventually the elder brother, Joseph,
ran to the massive Open Cast Mining
Tractor towering over the field of
battle and took the elevator straight
to the control centre. The enormous
machine thundered into life and he
punched in the programme to start
the mining operation. By the time the
gouges and separators were biting
into the hard, baked soil, Hans
Gruber was already making for the
controls of Camp 3's blue painted
OCM Tractor. A moment later it was
picking up speed toward the other
machine, and minutes later, crashed
into it with a shriek of tortured metal
and fractured pressure pipes.
Both men threw on maximum power and the gigantic machines grappled and heaved like a pair of
nightmarish monsters. The air filled
with dust and the wail of overloaded
servos as the huge wheels clawed and
scrabbled at the hard surface trying
frantically for sufficient purchase to
force the adversary aside. Grappling
arms and gouges tore at each other as
the two men struggled to gain an
advantage until eventually the
Camp 3 tractor pulled itself free and
retreated. There was a brief pause
and then with a roar the two monsters
closed again with a crash and an
explosion of dust and sand. For over
an hour the two giants heaved and
swayed in the clouds of dust and the
ground became littered with debris
until suddenly there was a shattering
explosion followed by several more,
and the forward portion of Camp 3's
machine disintegrated in a series of
blinding flashes and hurtling
wreckage.
Frantically, Joseph Gruber threw
his machine into reverse, but the
great wheels tore at the ground
without effect. The two giants were
inextricably locked together. Flames
flickered and spread as the protective
coating blistered and arcs of electrical
current crackled in the torn metal.
Suddenly there was an earth shaking
roar from the belly of his brother's
machine and he sprawled against the
bulkhead as the control room tilted
crazily. Then a blinding flash and
eruption of earth and metal as the
reactor went out of control.
Should anyone chose to visit this
harsh, uncomfortable planet the site
of this epic duel is easily found. All
that remains to be seen is a wide
circle of sand fused into glass by the
intense heat and a large radioactive
crater marking what was once a
prime mining site.
The two massive mining tractors
crashed together as their operators
fought a desperate duel.
63
The Great Rebellion
From its foundation in 1999 AD as a
subsidiary of the World Council, the
Terran Trade Authority rapidly
became the single most powerful
entity in known space. Originally
established to administer and co- 
ordinate trade on Earth its
responsibilities and powers grew
with the conquest of space; first
within the solar system itself and
later with the newly colonized worlds
as they became established. As more
and more sources of supply and
demand came into being, so the task
of monitoring and controlling them
became more complex.
The devastating Proxima Wars of
the mid twenty-first century imposed
a tremendous strain on Earth's
industrial and technological reserves,
and in order to meet the demands of
an immensely costly war fought
continuously for 20 years, the careful
husbandry of available resources was
of paramount importance. The TTA
was awarded the powers necessary
for the task of governing the
exploitation of raw materials and
their distribution to the
manufacturing industries whose own
output was in turn subject to the
Authority's approval. The need for
highly specialized goods for
particular military requirements
resulted in the TTA setting up
various of its own manufacturing
complexes,, and another stage in its
development began.
By the end of that century, most
military ships were commissioned
from the TTA's own yards and the
spare capacity of the post-war years
A few military ships had been
undergoing minor repairs in the
Consolidated Aerospace yards and two
were used in the first raid against the
Central Administration. Shown here is
the TTA 355B Striker attacking with
Vesta thermobombs.
any group of individuals. The
dawning of the age of Man's
expansion into space had channelled
huge resources into the industry and
its allied fields. The growing
reluctance of the population to
contribute significantly to
government-originated programmes
coupled with the undeniable need
for the exploitation of space
gradually allowed the initiative to fall
into the hands of commercial
interests.
And so the giant astro-engineering
corporations grew into being, the
largest of which was Consolidated
Aerospace. Possessing the largest
privately owned shipyards in the
Solar System and controlling many
of the associated industries such as
electronics and nuclear research
plants, Consolidated Aerospace were
obviously unhappy to see their
influence over the expansion into
space reduced and control placed in
the hands of an outside agency.
Though they resisted bitterly they
were unable to prevent the
inevitable, and the organization was
eventually absorbed into the TTA
structure. After considerable initial
problems a workable relationship was
gradually achieved, but one man
never accepted the change of
direction.
was made available for the
construction of civil craft. Licenses
were granted to the two major
independent shipbuilders, Avery
Astronautics and Consolidated
Aerospace. It was not long before
every craft produced in the
expanding Terran Federation was
subject to the Authority's approval.
The gigantic complex of the
Terran Trade Authority center was
situated where the old North African
shipyards once were and housed all
the sophisticated equipment vital to
the difficult task of co-ordinating the
wide and intricate web of enterprize
of both the Empire and allied
systems such as Alpha and Proxima
Centauri. From here were operated
all the scores of administrative
centers, the hundreds of executive
bases and the thousands of sub
stations scattered throughout the
Empire. All the data banks and the
machinery of government were
housed in a base the size of a large
city surrounded by cultivated forests.
There were, of course, many who
resented bitterly the degree of
control the TTA had over their
commercial activities and the powers
it had to enforce them. In that
respect the Authority was almost a
law unto itself, and often the balance
of the vast network of interstellar
trade was maintained at the expense
of minority interests. This was
particularly so in the case of the
shipbuilding industry which had for
many years, prior to and even during
the Proxima Wars, been one of the
most powerful forces in the hands of

64

times that could ill afford
unnecessary consumption.
Relationships between the two
organizations, always stormy, became
impossible and the Terran Central
Administration instructed the TTA
to cut off essential supplies until
Apseley agreed to co-operate in the
implementation of a programme of
planned growth.
On receiving this ultimatum,
Apseley retired to one of his isolated
research centers in Brazil where he
remained closeted with a number of
friends and colleagues for some days.
There was much to-ing and fro-ing
of private craft during this period,
carrying some of the most important
men in the astronautics industry as
well as some influential government
figures. Eventually he emerged from
seclusion and returned to
Consolidated's main European
headquarters. He appeared to be a
changed man, and meekly agreed to
accept the Authority's stipulations
with scarcely a murmur. He offered
to personally reorganize the giant
corporation to reduce production
targets and allow the involvement of
the TTA in all major new
development projects. Many of the
subsidiary organizations would be re- 
directed towards other commercial
ends at the discretion of the
Authority. It was a greater
concession than had ever been hoped
for and the offer was received with
enthusiasm.
For the next few months, Apseley
threw himself into a programme of
visits and conferences that would
have destroyed a lesser man.
Curiously, one or two of his key men
disappeared soon to be followed by
others until one day, Apseley himself
failed to turn up where he was
expected. Efforts to trace him
revealed the disturbing fact that
unaccountably large numbers of his
staff from all levels were missing and
although reasons had been given in
most cases, checks proved them all to
be fabrications. Gradually reports
started to flood in of missing ships,
equipment and materials. Entire craft
had disappeared and vast quantities
Harcourt Apseley was a self-willed
and independent man who had joined
Consolidated as a boy in one of the
machine shops, studying electronics
in his spare time. He never socialized
and spent every waking moment
trying to satisfy his consuming
interest in astrophysics. He gradually
worked his way up to becoming
Chief Engineer of the main
fabrication yards, before leaving to
set up a company producing highly
specialized electronic detection
equipment with a degree of
sophistication far in excess of current
needs. Ordinarily it seemed to be the
recipe for disaster, but after the
contact with the inhabitants of Alpha
Centauri had revealed that Man was
not alone in the Universe, Apseley
had anticipated the war which was to
accelerate the evolution of space
travel so dramatically
As a result his company flourished
and he sold out to Consolidated for a
seat on their main board. There was
no-one to match his dedication, drive
and ambition and it was only a matter
of time before the effective control of
the corporation was in his hands. He
was like a man possessed and
involved himself directly with every
aspect of Consolidated's activities,
from product development, through
the various manufacturing stages to
sales and exploitation. He anticipated
the move to explore and colonize
worlds outside our own system and
while others were seeking to exploit
the growing demand for small private
spacecraft, concentrated on building
massive vessels capable of carrying
settlers across the vastness of space.
His vision was to see Consolidated
Aerospace represented on every new
world, with manufacturing bases
there building the ships to drive even
deeper into the Galaxy.
Already the largest shipbuilding
facility on Earth, under his direction
three out of every major craft in
production came off his slips, and it
was not surprising that he fiercely
resisted the increasing degree of
control that the TTA imposed on his
activities. His demands for raw
materials could only be met at the
expense of other areas of
manufacturing, and it was felt that
there was a risk of supply exceeding
demand and therefore introducing an
element of premature obsolescence in

Rebel Clip-on weapon pack used to convert civil
ships for offensive roles.

The Rebel fleet consisted mainly of
modified civil craft such as this
CA 1992 Ferryman adapted to carry
and launch chemical warhead missiles.
66



of supplies had been re-routed to
unknown destinations.
An emergency meeting of the
Central Administration was called,
attended by the senior officials from
many of the government agencies in
North America. Much of the missing
material had military applications
and constituted a grave threat to
security. As discussions were in
progress, a top priority message came
in from Terran Defence Authority
headquarters. It read:
'Communications disrupted locally.
Contact with various overseas bases
lost. Something is wrong. Have
ordered General Alert. Please
standby to authorize Maximum Alert
Status. End. ' Two minutes later
Vesta thermobombs began to rain
down on the city.
Various key military and
government centers round the world
found themselves similarly under
attack. The Central Information
Bureau was virtually wiped out in a
thermobomb raid. The Military
Intelligence Office in Rome suffered
a similar fate, and the TTA
headquarters in North Africa was
destroyed in a surprise nuclear strike.
Important military bases reported
that they were under attack from an
extraordinary range of vessels
carrying armament ranging from
nuclear weapons to almost useless
industrial laserguns. Nearly all the
craft appeared to be commercial
types modified to carry armament.
There were even tiny private
transport vehicles fitted with simple
chemical rocket launchers striking at
military launch sites. Minor bases
were being surprised and overrun
and used as refuelling and arming
facilities. More dangerously, military
vehicles were captured and pressed
into service. Apseley's 'Impossible
Army' was a threat to the very
existence of the Terran Federation.
Every civil ship and an increasing
number of government ones became
suspect and the Defence Authority,
never having anticipated a civil
uprising of this order, was thrown
into confusion.
Apseley was utilizing his
considerable knowledge of
The fate of the uprising was sealed
when the Mars based TTA Barracudas
finally arrived to reinforce the hard-
pressed government crews.
69
BOB LAYZELL
electronics and communications to
intercept and distort messages and
instructions. The government forces
had no knowledge of his deployment
or supply bases and the various
detachments operational felt as
though they were fighting a Will o'
the Wisp. They were simply not
equipped to react to this kind of
enemy. Desperate attempts were
made to intercept the motley bands
of assorted craft and contain them
until reinforcements arrived from
other parts of the System. The
situation was further complicated by
the evacuation of the civilian
population from target areas.
The very preposterousness of
Apseley's action was his principal
advantage, and he exploited it as
much as he could. His ships would
move into civil flight paths, follow
normal operating procedures, and
were almost impossible to distinguish
from the regular traffic. Suddenly
veering off to strike at their target,
they would then disappear in the
same way. Soon all civil traffic was
grounded to prevent further use of
this technique, but by now sufficient
military craft with their sophisticated
electronic equipment, were in his
hands for him not to be so dependent
on his earlier improvisations.
The nearest major Defence Force
base was on the moon, but the
Consolidated Aerospace fabrication
yards there had been taken over by
Apseley's men who were already
tying-up a considerable proportion of
the Lunar Squadrons. The latter
were badly hit initially but the rebel
forces were much easier to locate and
strike than back on Earth. They were
destroyed without much difficulty
once the Defence Forces had
recovered from their early
astonishment. But valuable time had
been lost, and the situation on the
Home Planet was becoming
extremely serious. Apseley had even
taken the opportunity to bomb out of
existence the big Australian
manufacturing complex of his main
competitor, A very Astronautics, as
well as the Southern Hemisphere
Control Center of the Terran
Defence Authority.
But the picture was soon to alter.
Interceptor squadrons based on Mars
were already on their way and these
craft were far more advanced than
the second line ships with which the
Earth based units were equipped and
which were really only intended for
policing roles. Ten days after
Apseley's extraordinary onslaught
was launched, the first detachments
of the sleek and efficient craft entered
Earth's atmosphere. By now the
security forces had regrouped and
were co-ordinating operations fairly
effectively. The movements of the
rebel forces were now being
monitored and the Interceptors
moved in.
The strange and various collection
of hastily converted civil craft and
captured government ships were no
match for the new arrivals and rebel
losses mounted dramatically with
minimal casualties among the
interceptor crews. But there were
still too few of them and the battle
was far from won as Apseley
continued to strike at the launch sites
and communication centers of the
government forces. He was still
gaining access to supplies of fuel and
heavy armaments and had sufficient
servicing facilities to keep his ships in
the air almost continuously. But it
was men he was running out of. The
lack of replacement crews began to
tell as the round the clock operations
took their toll in exhaustion and a
growing accident rate. He began to
lose ships through simple pilot error
and morale was declining rapidly.
Gradually crews began to disappear,
trying to escape what was now
becoming inevitable by heading out
into space. The interceptors were
able to strike at Apseley's bases
without even coming under fire, and
the security forces were starting to
recapture their previous positions.
With the arrival of further
interceptors from the now secure
Lunar bases opposition collapsed and
Rebel crews began surrendering their
ships without a struggle. All that
remained was the mopping up
operation and the long, painful
business of counting the cost.
Apseley himself was spotted trying
to escape the planet, but escaped
retribution by overloading the
reactor on his ship as the interceptors
closed in. What he had hoped to
achieve in the long run remains a
mystery, but he had come nearer
than any man to gaining control of
Earth and possibly of the Federation.
The improvised rebel squadrons—
despite their earlier successes — were
no match for the interceptors which
eventually arrived from Martian bases.
In the foreground is a converted
CA 440 minifreighter fleeing with a
personal transport schooner from
government ships.

70

Colonization
Incident 1
A team of settlers set out on an ill-
fated journey to track down the
monstrous Blueworms of Drakon's
Folly.
The struggle to survive in unfamiliar
and often hostile environments has
always been the lot of settlers in
strange lands. Throughout Man's
history colonists have pushed out
from familiar places to carve
themselves a new life and wrest their
fortunes from the wilderness. It is
probably the greatest test of the
human spirit when individuals pit
themselves against the unknown,
relying on faith and their own
ingenuity to enable them to survive.
This is never more true than when it
is not simply new lands that need to
be conquered, but entire planets.
The traditional problems are
multiplied a hundredfold and, very
often, the isolation of the colonists is
complete.
A typical example was Drakon's
Folly, a planet roughly the size of
Mars and one of a tight group of four
orbiting the double star 70 Ophiuci.
Atmospheric density and the
gravitational field are somewhat less
than Earth's making life possible, if
not pleasant. In 2303 AD an advance
party of 248 settlers and scientists
landed north of the planet's equator
and speedily assembled a temporary
base to accommodate themselves and
the huge mound of equipment and
supplies they had brought. The hull
of the massive ship that had carried
them from the Solar System
provided the basis for much of this
and the only structures assembled on
the planet's surface housed vehicles
and drilling equipment for the water
supply which was their first objective.
While most were engaged in the
business of establishing the
settlement over the next few months,
the scientific personnel were
exploring their new home and
identifying resources which could be
exploited or even exported in
exchange for those things they could
not provide for themselves. There
seemed to be an abundance of
various valuable mineral deposits and
the soil was suitable for growing
most of the seeds they had brought
with them. Indeed much of the
indigenous flora was fit for human
consumption, such as the great rafts
of algae-like plants which possessed
an extremely high water content and
a simple cellular structure very rich
in nutrients. There seemed to be,
however, very few life forms of a
higher order, and no animal life that
could be identified, although the
domestic creatures they had brought
seemed to thrive.
One curious phenomenon
discovered was a series of slimy
paths, slightly radioactive and
composed of a mucous material,
which ran across the surface some
distance from the camp. Some of
these had dried and were
disappearing while others appeared
fairly fresh. Although they were
followed for several miles no
indication of their source was found
and no organized pattern could be
found in their distribution.
The early months were extremely
busy with the establishment of basic
requirements being the first priority.
There was little time for casual
exploration and the settlement began
to take shape with large cultivated
areas of test plantings to discover the

72


projection. The great blue worm-like
shape lunged down onto the body as
the last three craft skimmed across
the bleak landscape towards the
settlement.
That night a conference was held
to decide how to combat this threat
to the survival of the group, and the
next day the first of many
observation parties set out to
determine the number and
distribution of these fearsome
creatures. The Worms were
beginning to venture closer and
closer to the main base in their search
for food in an area which was
obviously lacking in wildlife as a
result of their voracious appetites.
Those of the settlers not involved in
the scouting patrols busied
themselves in constructing defences
such as high voltage fences and
improvised minefields.
As the patrols reported back, a
clearer picture emerged. The cave
first discovered was one of three in
the area occupied by the blue
serpents and provided
accommodation for what was
obviously an integrated family group
of about ten or eleven Worms. The
next nearest 'nest' was 50 miles away
and as their range appeared to be
fairly limited, they posed no
immediate threat.
Moving at night, they seemed not
to be greatly effected by the
conventional laserguns and beamers
carried by those guarding the
perimeter fences as their regenerative
abilities were extraordinarily
sophisticated, and damaged tissue
was replaced within minutes.
Eventually one of the twin-stilted
construction modules was adapted to
carry a high capacity industrial
lasercutter and after preliminary tests
was stationed on the perimeter to
await the arrival of the next hunting
party of Worms.
When they next appeared the
'stiller' was moved straight to the
sector where the massive beasts were
ranging backwards and forwards in
front of the wire barriers. Positioning
themselves as close to one of the
creatures as possible the colonists
triggered the beam and a powerful
lance of light sliced deep into the
body of the creature. The huge, black
shape thrashed wildly as the beam
was played over the coarse skin,
most efficient strains of various
foodstuffs. There were even grazing
lands to sustain the animals they had
carried so far across space, and an
incident in one such area provided a
glimpse of the horrors to come.
Two of the herd keepers were
making a routine patrol of their
charges one morning when they came
to one of the strange mucous trails
which had been seen before. They
split up to follow both directions of
the trail, and the keeper moving
along the greasy path away from the
pastures found that it was becoming
drier as he walked until it was no
more than crisp, translucent flakes on
the dusty soil before disappearing
altogether. He retraced his steps and
soon came to the low slopes
surrounding the grasslands. As he
reached the crest of the ridge a
macabre scene came into view. The
entire field was littered with the
bones of cattle, scattered among the
tufts of wiry grass and gleaming
wetly as the pale sun caught the
strands of mucous covering them. On
the edge of the field lay a human
skeleton and among the bones lay the
electric cattle-prod his colleague had
carried. He stared blankly at the
desolate panorama then turned and
ran back towards the distant ship.
Immediately after his return, a
party investigated, and found
nothing to indicate what had taken
place. The mucous trail crossed and
recrossed the area leaving a
radioactive trace before disappearing
towards the rocky region to the
north. Six men set out on
hoverscooters to follow the track
before it vanished completely in the
growing heat of the day. When they
reached the fissured crags of the
bleak northern range a huge number
of the oily marks, some fairly fresh,
could be seen among the tumbled,
jagged rocks, but nothing to explain
their presence. They landed at a spot
where the slicks were particularly in
evidence, left one of their number to
guard the scooters and set off to
explore the area.
There were many cracks and caves
throughout the region and one very
large one was discovered, its entrance
coated in layers of congealed slime
and which their counters revealed to
be emitting considerable radiation
levels. Cautiously they entered, the
light from their Flourobeams
glinting eerily from the encrusted
walls as they edged over the worn,
sticky floor. Although the radiation
levels were increasing, they were still
tolerable and the crevice widened out
as they moved deeper into the
darkness, until their lights barely
reached the polished roof above
them.
Rounding a bend in the tunnel, the
sides of the shaft vanished into the
gloom on either side, and their beams
glowed from a sheer cliff obstructing
their path which seemed to be
composed of a curious blue material.
Whatever the substance was it
seemed to be the source of the
radiation and one of the party
checked the closures of his insulated
suit and walked up to it. He stretched
out his hand and touched it.
Instantly the surface shivered and
rippled. With a cry he leapt back as
the whole wall shifted and slid
sideways. There was a terrifying
sound of rushing air as the monstrous
body of the creature shifted round.
Panic coursed through the men as
they stumbled and collided their way
to the entrance. Something was
moving rapidly up behind them and
as the shaft narrowed, two of them
became entangled with each other
and crashed onto the greasy floor. As
those in front burst into the light
they were followed by desperate
screams quickly drowned in a
hideous sucking sound. Without
pausing they ran towards the place
where they had left the scooters, and
gesticulating to the lookout they had
left, launched themselves into the air
with the bewildered guard close
behind.
As they lifted to maximum height,
a massive blue shape burst out of the
cave mouth, its great bulbous head
questing to and fro, mouth agape. It
spotted them and reared violently
upwards, catching the hindmost
craft and sending it spinning to the
ground. Its rider crashed onto a
jagged peak of rock and hung
grotesquely, his suit snagged on a
On some worlds already settled, the
colonists had to fight for survival
against both the predators of the
planet and civilizations already
inhabiting it.
75
JIM BURNS

piercing deep to the heart of the
Worm. The darkness blazed with
intermittent flashes of light as the
shredded carcase burst through the
electrified fence and crashed to the
ground, an evil smelling dark fluid
seeping from the many slashes and
cuts in the leathery hide. Although
still quivering and shifting as its
internal organs settled, the huge
creature was dead.
The Stiller strode to the break in
the defences and began firing streak
after streak of intense light at the dim
shapes beyond. The creatures
seemed incensed by the death of one
of their number and pushed up to the
wire, reacting less and less violently
to the charges of current as though
becoming acclimatized. The power
supply for the laser was running low
so the operator fixed on the nearest of
the Worms, concentrating the beam
on one area to prevent the tissue
repairing itself. Finally the beast
reared and twisted before collapsing
to the ground. As if at a signal, the
remainder turned and moved off
towards the north.
The colonists spent the next few
days re-equipping the rest of the
Stilters in the same way and, when
they were complete, an expedition
was mounted to follow the Worms to
their nesting grounds. Within hours
of their arrival, all the creatures had
been destroyed with the loss of only
two machines and their operators.
Before long all was as it had been
before except that on the low ridges
surrounding the grazing lands could
be seen the spidery outlines of
Stilters where the herd keepers had
stood.
Incident 2
it was given priority status in the
manned exploration programme and
as soon as the earlier material had
been re-examined and the survey
learns briefed, the first ships were on
their way.
The landing was uneventful and a
base camp quickly established.
Within two days the first pieces of
survey data were being transmitted
back to Vega Data Center, but the
Day Three routine report contained
bad news. A five man biological learn
had set out on the second day and
had not returned. All teams
operating away from the base camp
carried trace transmitters and when
the party failed to show up, their
signal was tracked by a second patrol,
who followed it to the study group's
temporary camp and were met by a
grisly sight. The camp was a
shambles, with equipment and cases
scattered everywhere and inside one
of the shelters were the badly
mutilated bodies of four of the
scientists. The fifth was found
crouching beneath their transporter,
completely insane. He was heavily
sedated and brought back to Base
One with the bodies of his colleagues.
Every effort was made to try and
discover from him an account of
Probably the strangest story
concerning the settlement of a new
world, and one which failed, was the
attempted colonization of New
Erewhon, now known as Bedlam.
This tempting and unapproachable
planet was in every respect the ideal
subject for exploitation. Early
unmanned surveys revealed a lush
and obviously fertile world with a
climate much like that of Earth, Bel
if anything, more agreeable. The rich
vegetation was tropical in appearance
and covered most of the land masses.
About 60 per cent of the planet
consisted of warm seas and a large
number of lakes and broad rivers.
There were indications of
considerable mineral deposits and
samples of plant forms and bacterial
organisms suggested thai the
introduction of new species would
pose no unusual problems.
The preliminary report submitted
to the Colonial Board of the Terran
Trade Authority classified it as an A1
Settlement subject, the fir si to ever
qualify for maximum rating. As such

Using an industrial lasergun mounted
on a Stilter, one of the colonists
attacks the giant worms.
77
what had happened, but without
success. Three days later a garbled
message was received from one of the
other teams in an outlying region. It
was obviously an incoherent cry for
help and another rescue team was
dispatched, only to find a scene
horribly reminiscent of the earlier
tragedy but this time four out of the
six men were alive and insane.
Two days later the same thing
occurred, and then it happened in
one of the dormitories inside the
main base. That night a series of
hysterical screams was heard coming
from the room. Men from a
neighbouring shelter rushed into the
darkened building, the sounds of
utter panic increased, reaching a
crescendo before trailing off into
silence. By the time others arrived all
was quiet, and they cautiously
entered to find an all too familiar
scene. It was impossible to establish
what had caused the deaths or the
terror of the victims. Nothing had
left the building which could have
caused such a panic and in view of
the number of instances it was
unlikely that in every case, one man
had become deranged and attacked
his colleagues.
Nothing that made sense could be
extracted from those who were still
alive. Each of them babbled on with
descriptions of impossible and
terrifying images, and the only step
that could be taken was to declare a
state of emergency. There were only
two study teams still in the field and
they were recalled. One returned.
The situation was now becoming
desperate, and Vega Data Center sent
an evacuation unit to orbit the planet.
By the time they arrived there had
been no further reports from the
surface, and the worst was feared.
Awaiting instructions from Vega,
they went into stationary orbit and
continued trying to make contact
with the base below. Suddenly one of
the crew who was staring out of a
viewport, shrieked into the intercom,
and others ran to look. There, close
by the ship, was a dreadful
apparition - an impossibly huge
three-headed hound, solid and
undeniable its head swung towards
the ship and its lips curled back in a
snarl. As they stared unbelievingly,
the other heads swung slowly round
to face the ship and the creature
eased back on its haunches and
tensed as if to spring.
The Commander tore himself
away from the port and punched the
alert button. Instinctively, the crew
slipped into their positions and the
drive units erupted into life, tearing
the ship out of orbit and out into
empty space. Behind them the fearful
image shimmered and faded until
there was nothing there but the stars.
The military were eventually
called in and experienced for
themselves similar hallucinations and
mind-numbing sensations of terror.
Several attempts to approach the
planet were made with increasingly
positive reactions, as though
whatever caused the images and
emotional stimuli was feeding on the
fear and growing stronger.
Automatic surveillance craft were
sent to confirm the fate of the original
expedition which was as anticipated.
There has been considerable
speculation as to the cause of these
phenomena but nothing has been
established. Samples taken of the
atmosphere have revealed nothing to
account for them and there are no
detectable emissions or radiations
from the planet to explain these
extraordinary events. Bedlam has
been placed strictly off-limits and is
ringed by sensor modules to prevent
ships straying into the vicinity of this
strange, luxuriant and deadly world.
Visions of a deadly world: the sight
that greeted the rescue ship that came
too late to save the team surveying a
planet which was a colonist's dream.

Orbital Guard Sensors as stationed around Cerberus.

78

The Pirate World
In 2048 AD the most devastating war
in the history of Man broke out
involving the civilizations of three
great stellar systems. The Proxima
Wars, as they were called, lasted for
20 years of unrestrained fury and
destruction, during which time the
combatants were fighting for more
than honour or a political advantage.
They were committed to a bitter
struggle for the very survival of their
respective species, and as the war
progressed, so the nature of the
weapons employed became ever more
sophisticated and efficient. In the
early stages crude but effective
nuclear hardware was widely and
indiscriminately employed, but as
defensive measures improved,
offensive armament became steadily
more refined and specific.
Although the new generations of
military hardware attained levels of
fearsome ingenuity hitherto
inconceivable, it was the
comparatively primitive
thermonuclear devices employed in
the early years which were to have
the most serious long-term
repercussions. Millions of creatures
from all three systems perished in the
white heat of nuclear blasts. Millions
more suffered lingering deaths from
secondary effects, and residual
radiation continued to claim lives for
many years. Of even greater
significance in the light of more
recent events were the huge numbers
of unfortunates who suffered but did
not die as a direct result of the
detonating warheads. Many were
scarcely aware of the damage they
had sustained and carried on their
lives apparently unaffected and,
although most of these were now
sterile, some carried the seeds of a
new horror.
After hostilities had finally ceased
the participants withdrew to begin
the overwhelming task of rebuilding
their shattered worlds. Industry,
commerce and the entire social fabric
had in each case been drastically
changed to meet the insatiable
demands of a long and desperate
conflict and the task of
reconstruction was hampered by
sadly depleted resources of materials,
manpower and expertise together
with constantly shifting priorities. In
these early stages, most of the effort
was directed toward the revitalization
of industry and trade. Everything
else was approached in a somewhat
piecemeal fashion such as the
rebuilding of war torn towns and
cities, the redirecting of
communications and the re-
establishment of individual
communities. The care of those
affected by the shadows of the
mushroom clouds which sprouted in
the early years of the war, but who
were outwardly unharmed, was
considered to be well down the list of
pressing needs.
At first the struggle to rebuild their
worlds fully occupied those faced
with the task of salvaging their lives
from the devastation and masked the
terrible images of the war which were
burned into their minds. Physical
evidence of the long struggle was
erased as speedily as possible and the
Hundreds of small freighters, available
after the end of the Laguna Wars,
carried the mutants in their exodus to
the Capella System.

80

very mention of it became taboo.
Those unfortunate enough to carry
the scars of war were treated as
outcasts from society, and were
increasingly forced to form their own
communities away from those who
were unaffected. Although officially
deplored, the strength of popular
feeling made it impossible for the
authorities to insist that these
individuals be integrated into the rest
of society. They were despised and
instances of lynchings and stonings
began to occur with increasing
frequency. They were segregated
into special communities far from
existing settlements and it was here
that the first of their children were
born.
Those able to reproduce passed on
genetic codes distorted by the effects
of various radiation doses and the
result was a mutation. Many did not
survive but others did and invoked
the fear inspired hatred of the rest of
society. In order to prevent wholesale
massacres, the authorities decided to
move them to their own planet and a
suitable one in the Capella binary
system was set aside for this purpose.
In 2128 AD the exodus began, and six
of the huge Voyager 6 Settler ships
set out accompanied by four
Connestogas carrying the materials
and equipment to enable them to
build their own society in the
constellation of Aurigae.
As far as the authorities on all the
planets involved with the scheme
were concerned the problem was now
resolved. After government survey
ships reported the safe arrival of the
mutant settlers and later their
apparent well-being, no further
contact was had with them until
circumstances decreed otherwise.
In 2256 AD a commercial orecarrier
returning from the rich asteroid
fields in the Menkalinan system
beyond Capella, disappeared without
trace. Shortly afterwards a convoy of
four carriers reported themselves to
be under attack from unknown ships
before they too vanished. The
Federal Law Enforcement Agency
dispatched two ships to investigate
the area but nothing was found to
indicate who or what was
responsible. About a year later a
general trader taking supplies and
luxury goods to the miners never
reached its destination and TTA
scouts again found no clue. All the
craft involved had been travelling
the busy and important trade route
which led not only to the great ore-
fields but also to the growing
manufacturing complexes situated in
that area.
When, later that year, two more
ships disappeared it was decided that
something had to be done to prevent
the disruption of this vital link, and
two TTA ships were fitted out to
appear like unarmed freighters and
joined a small convoy en route to
Menkalinan fields. Their course took
them within a light year of Capella
and as they neared the distinctive
yellow star, their mass detectors
picked up the signals of objects
emerging from warp-drive. Seconds
later four unidentified craft appeared
on their view screens closing fast, and
the tight, brilliant beam of a laser
weapon cut instantly across the nose
of the leading freighter. The TTA
craft immediately launched a
counterattack while the rest of the
convoy scattered and succeeded in
destroying one of the attackers and
immobilizing another before the
remaining pair retreated and re-
entered warp.
Anxious to discover the identity of
the assailants, one of the Law
Enforcement captains manoeuvred
his ship alongside the damaged
stranger. As he was jockeying into
position there was a blinding flash
and fragments of both ships hurtled
out into the darkness. Whoever these
alien raiders were, they were
certainly determined to keep their
identities secret, and the mystery
only deepened when many of the
items of equipment salvaged from the
wreckage were found to be of a
standard terrestrial pattern, some
even bearing Terran Trade
Authority serial numbers.
The nearest occupied planet was
the mutant colony in the Capella
system nearby, but this was a self-
sufficient world that was unlikely to
have felt the need, or indeed the
inclination to develop sophisticated
spacecraft. In any case, the raiders
had been equipped with warp-drive
and could therefore have come from
almost anywhere in this section of the
Galaxy. It seemed improbable that a
world, which by mutual inclination
was isolated from, and independent
The small, efficient pirate spacecraft in
their distinctive yellow and black
camouflage struck at the busy
spacelanes from their hidden bases.
Despite every effort of the Federal
Authorities they still pose a threat to
travellers on the busy Menkalinan
route.

82


of, the Terran Federation, would
have found justification for
developing and producing such a
system. Nevertheless every avenue
had to be pursued in order to keep
the trade route open, and a
delegation was sent to the colony to
investigate.
Meanwhile, cargo vessels were still
vanishing without trace from the
same regions of the spacelane, and
FLEA ships were placed on
continuous patrol throughout the
area. Despite their presence and the
fact that many of the freighters
regularly plying this route were being
fitted with defensive armament, the
smaller convoys and single vessels
were still, though less frequently,
subject to the lightning raids.
A Settlement Welfare Team was
sent to the mutant world, and in
addition to the usual medical,
economic and technological
personnel a number of ITA Security
agents accompanied the mission. The
arrival of the group was obviously
unwelcome, and they were received
with cold formality by the
representatives of this isolated
planet. It was made quite clear that
assistance was neither needed nor
desired, but eventually it was agreed
that the team would be allowed to see
how the mutant colonists had
adapted themselves for survival on a
new world, and what sort of
technology had been developed,
ostensibly as a fact-gathering exercise
for future settlers. Although no
information was freely volunteered,
the visitors were taken to any
installation or community they asked
to see, but nothing was found to
suggest that the inhabitants were in
any way responsible for the
harassment of shipping, or indeed
that they even possessed a means of
leaving the surface of their world.
Nevertheless, it was felt that the
team were not being shown all there
was to see, and the security men
decided to try and explore a little on
their own initiative. While the rest of
the party were being taken to see a
small factory manufacturing
agricultural equipment using nuclear
power, the four security men who
had been masquerading as
information analysts elected to
remain in the ship in order to begin
the task of synthesizing the mass of
accumulated knowledge. Once the
others had left with their ever-
present guides, they equipped
themselves with lift-packs and each
jetted off in a different direction to
areas they had not already been
shown.
One of the four, Captain Mas
Yelwoc, set off for a remote, densely
wooded region about 300 kilometers
north of the ship. Wearing a pressure
suit he ascended vertically through
the thin atmosphere until the ship
vanished from sight and the
landscape became a featureless land
mass glimpsed through the drifting
cloud layer. Setting his course he
sped towards his target, and was soon
overhead. It was growing dark, and
he made his rapid descent amid
gathering gloom, landing in tangled
undergrowth about seven kilometers
from a less densely covered area at
the foot of a range of low hills. Still
carrying the lift-pack, he made his
way through the lengthening
shadows toward the clearing.
As he approached he could see
figures moving about beyond a
haphazard collection of structures
around the edge, and snatches of
sound, like machinery being used,
drifted through the strange plants
surrounding him. Suddenly there
was the shriek of a propulsion unit
being warmed up. It reached a
crescendo and then died away with
an eerie moan. He worked his way
closer to the fringe of buildings and
arrived at the back of the large
structure from which the sound had
come. A crack in the plastic covering
spilled light onto the ground and
then onto his faceplate as he pressed
his helmet to the aperture.
Inside was the huge, squat shape of
an ore freighter bearing the markings
of one of the mining companies
active in the Menkalinan fields. It
was encased in scaffolding and was
apparently being dismantled by the
strange, wiry figures which swarmed
over the hull. One of its steering jets
was mounted on a bench nearby, and
it was obviously this which Yelwoc
had heard. It looked as though he
had found the culprits, but how had
The existence of the pirates was
discovered by Captain Mas Yelwoc
who only just managed to escape with
the vital information.
84
PETER ELSON


they snatched the ships from space?
Another hangar lay beyond and he
decided to have a look, and a few
moments later he was in the lee of the
darkened building. A few tugs, and a
corner of panelling came away far
enough for him to slip inside. He
stood up cautiously and saw the dim
bulk of a ship, the outline of which
did not tally with any that he knew
of. After a quick glance round the
empty shed he walked over to it. It
was certainly a pursuit craft of some
kind with a cabin only large enough
for three or four crew. Lateral thrust
engines flanked a domed housing on
the upper hull that was large enough
to accommodate a warp or
hyperdrive generator and the whole
ship was painted with irregular
yellow and black stripes. Underneath
the body of the craft was a substantial
fin-like projection, and a series of
apertures in the leading edge
revealed the snouts of a battery of
laser weapons.
As Captain Yelwoc crouched to
examine them, the main doors swung
open and a blaze of light picked him
out against the garish hull. There was
a shout and two spindly figures ran
toward him, one grabbing the nozzle
of a beamwelder from a jumble of
equipment as he passed. The white-
hot shaft of light hit the side of the
ship by the security man's shoulder,
and the skin of the vessel hissed and
bubbled as rivulets of molten alloy
blistered the paintwork. Instinctively
he snatched the blaster from the side
of his pack and fired, sending the
leading figure tumbling against the
side of the hangar. He fired again and
the second mutant sprawled
backwards and crashed into a stack of
packing cases.
Awkward in his heavy suit, Yelwoc
ran to the gap in the wall he had
made as more figures burst in
through the door, and hurled himself
at the opening, landing heavily on the
ground outside amid a shower of
plastic shards. Blaster beams
punched through the wall above him
and crackled into the darkness of the
woods as he struggled to his feet only
to see his escape route cut off as
The deadly interceptors of the Federal
Law Enforcement Authority struck hard
at the scattered bases. The problem
was not destroying them but finding
them.
86
PETER ELSON


gaunt figures flitted between the tall
woody growth on the perimeter.
Stumbling towards the hangar which
contained the partially dismantled
freighter he could see a horde of the
mutants pouring from other
buildings all round the clearing.
Once at the building he ducked
round the corner and desperately
started the procedure to re-activate
his lift-pack as the mutants milled
around noisily trying to locate him.
There was a shout and immediately
the horde rushed towards the suited
figure as he frantically closed the last
switches and the jet nozzles burst
into life whipping the ground around
him into a maelstrom of smoke and
steam. With one hand gripping the
controls as the jets heaved him into
the air he fired again and again into
the forest of hands which clutched
and scrabbled at his legs as he rose,
veering wildly as he picked up speed
in order to avoid the searing laser
beams beginning to stab at him from
below.
In a few seconds he was clear and
rising rapidly through the cloud
layer, as he readjusted the controls for
the course back to the ship. As soon
as the co-ordinates had been fed into
the navigator, he signalled ahead but
there was no response from the
others. Afraid that they too had been
attacked, he broadcast on the
emergency frequency which would
sound buzzers carried by each
member of the party. Within seconds
he picked up confirmation signals,
and with a sigh of relief, headed
The strength and numbers of the pirate
forces necessitated the use of Terran
Defence Authority troopships in the
attack on their fiercely defended
stronghold.
straight for the ship.
By the time he arrived, the others
were already either inside or on their
way back. While waiting for the last
two security men to reappear, he
briefed them as to what had
happened, and once the team was
complete, the ship's engines pushed
them into the atmosphere. A few
minutes later they were over the
clearing and the circle of buildings
could be seen around the edge, but of
their occupants there was no sign.
Cautiously the craft settled in the
center of the space on a dusty landing
apron, and half of the crew spread
out from the airlock to take a closer
look. The site was completely
deserted ar^d the hangars held
nothing but odds and ends of
discarded equipment and scrap
metal. There were recent scorch
marks on some parts of the apron and
it was obvious that the occupants had
made a hurried retreat.
It was decided to return to
challenge the mutant leaders with an
account of what had happened, but
after they did so, the mutants simply
shrugged their shoulders and after
intensive questioning it was apparent
that they had no knowledge of,
responsibility for, or even interest in,
the existence of the space pirates.
Their duty, they argued, was simply
to administer the wider issues of
government, the affairs of individual
mutant communities being entirely
their own concern, and that problems
of this kind should be resolved
between the Terran Trade Authority
and the pirates themselves.
And so the delegation returned,
but at least the source of the costly
raids had been established and before
long a special Federal Law
Enforcement unit was formed to,
strike at the pirate bases.
Surveillance satellites were placed in
orbit around the planet and as soon
as the launch site was spotted, strike
ships homed in to blast the area. At
first, resistance was fierce and the
pirates engaged the interceptors in
pitched battles, but their ships were
outclassed by the Federal equipment
and their losses were heavy.
Eventually, Federal agents on the
surface of the planet succeeded in
finding a fortified area which was the
pirates' main base and the Terran
Defence Authority was called in to
provide troops. Under covering fire
from the Federal interceptors, the
military craft landed sufficient men
and equipment to overrun the
complex, and break up the pirate
ring. Inside were found
manufacturing facilities capable of
assembling entire spacecraft although
many of the components had
obviously been obtained from
elsewhere, such as captured ships
cannibalized to provide the more
specialized items. Plants to produce
and store nuclear fuels were also
discovered and there was evidence of
attempts to construct various fusion
weapons.
Although the main threat had been
removed, it has proved impossible to
eradicate the pirates completely
without the wholehearted co- 
operation of the rest of the mutant
community, and there are still
isolated instances of ships being
seized. Although there are occasional
FLEA patrols as a deterrent, most
ships travelling in the vicinity rely on
the convoy system for protection and
only especially valuable cargoes enjoy
the luxury of an armed escort.

Four-man pirate vessel in typical camouflage.
88

The Hunters of Asterion
In the minor constellation of Canes
Venatici is a dwarf star of spectral
class GO. Called Asterion, it lies
about 30 light years from Earth and
is circled by two planetary bodies,
the nearest of which is little more
than a cinder glowing through its
tight orbit. The other is well suited
to human occupation with a rich
nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere and
areas of ocean large enough to limit
the temperature range to within our
tolerance. As a result, this world was
colonized very early in Man's
Galactic expansion, and major
settlements were established.
As time passed, however, it
became something of a backwater in
the evolution of the Terran
Federation as its ecology provided
adequate resources for most of the
settlers' needs with little surplus of
interest for trading purposes.
Initially, tourist traffic kept them in
contact with the Home Planets, but
as new space routes provided access
to more exotic worlds, the Earth-like
characteristics drew fewer and fewer
sightseers until the only visitors were
routine Settlement Welfare Teams or
the occasional mineral prospector
needing supplies.
The natural fertility of their
planet and their dwindling contact
with the rest of mankind resulted in a
significant degree of regression in
their culture. Basically agrarian in
nature, their society had no need of a
high degree of technology in view of
the temperate climate and the
richness of the land. But despite
these qualities, survival was no easy
matter, as they had to compete with a
great number of other life-forms for
the fruits of their lush habitat. The
dense forests and jungles were
inhabited by some of the most
fearsome beasts yet known, and
gradually those whose task it was to
hunt for meat and defend the
settlements against these marauders,
evolved as an elite.
Only the children of Hunters could
learn how to track and confront the
Great White-Maned Tooteez in his
lair, or expose himself to the scything
talons of the Spurred Wooswoos in
order to reach the unarmored and
vulnerable point beneath its chin.
From the moment they could walk,
they were taught to be independent,
and to feel at home in the dark,
tangled forests that surrounded each
community.
At the age of six their fathers
carried them deep into the
wilderness, pointed out any features
that would give them a bearing on
the direction home, and abandoned
them to the jungle. Many did not
return, but those who did had their
existence acknowledged for the first
time by adults other than their
parents. From then on they were
allowed to accompany hunting
parties, first as observers and then as
participants, until the day came when
they were judged to be ready to go
out alone to bring back the pelt of the
Tooteez or the meter long claw of the
giant Wooswoos.
The Hunters were fiercely proud
and the social differences between
them and the tillers and reapers
A TTA supply terminal in the heart of
the booming mining fields of
Menkalinan. Law enforcement in these
far outposts of the Terran Federation
was difficult and they were often
targets for the crime syndicates.

90

with his agreement, he was enrolled
in a Federal Law Enforcement
college where he not only underwent
the standard training course, but also
intensive subsidiary studies to
familiarize him with the Empire that
had left his world behind. He
graduated with honours and was
posted to the wild and unruly mining
fields of Menkalinan where the
overstretched Federal forces
desperately tried to maintain order
among the boom towns that sprang
up fast and died as rapidly.
Jeef Kindswoog was not so
fortunate, and he found himself
becoming more and more deeply
involved with the darker side of the
city's life. At first living on his wits to
keep himself fed, it was not long until
he decided that the only way he could
return home was to steal enough
money to buy a ticket, and his daring
exploits soon brought him to the
attention of the big crime syndicates.
His abilities were soon being sought
by various factions to whom he hired
his services indiscriminately.
Eventually he began to appear on
police target lists and life became
very difficult and his movements
increasingly restricted.
One day a mysterious message led
him to a dingy bar in the outskirts of
New York, and there began his
involvement with the notorious
Capello Nero, a sinister organization
whose presence spread throughout
known space. His cunning, courage
and physical abilities led him higher
and higher within the 'Company' and
his original objective gradually faded
from his mind to be replaced by a
growing thirst for power. Three
years later he was given his own
territory in the rich and wide-open
mining fields of Menkalinan, already
the hunting grounds of numerous
rival groups. Within months he had
absorbed or eliminated the principal
factions and was co-ordinating
operations from his heavily fortified
base on the unnamed planet
PB34428 on the distant perimeter of
the Menkalinan fields.
Jeef Kindswoog rapidly built up
one of the most comprehensive
criminal networks in history,
controlling the protection, gambling
and vice rackets throughout the
region. He took rake-offs from most
of the small mining outfits and
gradually led to the segregation of the
two. The Hunters hired out their
skills to the farmers as required in
exchange for a share in the harvest,
and supplied them with fresh meat
and game. Their aggressive natures
often led to duels and feuds with
rival groups of Hunters who
encroached upon their territory or
challenged their honour, and
differences were settled by combat
between elected champions. These
men were treated almost as gods, and
stories about them spread to other
worlds in the Empire. Their prowess
with needlebeam and laserwhip, and
their single minded ingenuity in
combat eventually came to the
attention of the entertainment media,
and Holovid teams were sent to
record their skills for the amusement
of the inhabitants of more
sophisticated planets.
The documentaries served to
stimulate interest in this fierce breed
of men, and it was not long before an
enterprising entrepreneur succeeded
in enticing two of the foremost
Hunters aboard a chartered ship
bound for Earth. Aware that his
intentions would not be viewed with
approval by the Federal Authorities,
the operation was kept a closely
guarded secret, and seats for the
planned contest were strictly by
invitation only. It was the greatest
fiasco of the year! The two men,
Rahzell Kalee and Jeef Kindswoog,
who had not been told of the real
reason for their journey, refused to
fight as neither had slighted the other
at any time. After numerous attempts
to deceive them into challenging one
another, the embarrassed
businessman gave up and abandoned
them on Earth.
Unable to return home, they
wandered unhappily through the
streets of Rio de Janeiro where the
contest was to have been held until
they decided to split up and seek
their own ways back to Asterion. An
inadvertent brush with the law
brought Rahzell Kalee's plight to the
notice of the Authorities and he was
handed over to the Welfare Bureau
who gave him an Occupational
Guidance Test as part of routine
procedure. His profile read-out
indicated a law enforcement aptitude
with the highest ratings recorded
since the system was adopted, and
With a spectacular blaze of light, the
charges placed inside the battlecruiser
detonated, cutting off any escape from
the planet.

92

supplied them with cut-price
equipment stolen in raids on the
shipping lanes, often with the aid of
pirates from the mutant colony on
Capella. One of his most outrageous
exploits was to ambush a military
garrison, wiping it out and vanishing
with all their arms and weaponry
including a fully equipped
Battlecruiser and several Tactical
Self deploying missile launch towers.
The Federal Authorities were at their
wits end; as soon as they broke up
one ring, another took its place and
the fear of reprisal from Capello
Nero prevented them from acquiring
the information they needed to strike
at the heart of the organization.
Rahzell Kalee had inevitably been
closely involved with operations
against the Capello Nero in this
district for some time and was
becoming totally frustrated by the
lack of success. Eventually he
managed to persuade his superiors to
allow him to employ his own
methods independently, and after
drawing equipment and a small scout
ship, disappeared among the
asteroids. He was not to be heard of
again for nearly two years and
attempts to trace him proved
fruitless, until one day the gutted
hull of his ship was found in a
scrapyard during a routine check.
With great regret his name was
deleted from the 'active list' and his
record sheet was filed under
Missing-Believed Dead.
This was not the case. Rahzell was
very much alive but he was living on
the other side of the law, involving
himself with dozens of small thefts
and crooked dealings, working ever
closer to the heart of the Capello
Nero network. One day he was
recruited to participate in a big raid
on a TTA supply terminal, and
acquitted himself so well that he was
singled out to head one of the local
smuggling operations. His inside
knowledge of the Federal methods
and dispositions allowed him to
treble the scale of the group's
activities in four months.
Sitting in his base on one of the
millions of unregistered asteroids, a
call came through to inform him that
a Starship was making its approach
to carry him to PB34428 where he
was to receive a new appointment.
When the sleek cruiser arrived, he
knew he was nearing the end of his
search, but he could not risk relaying
his destination to Federal
Headquarters. As the tiny service
ship which had picked him up eased
into the main airlock, he felt a sense
of excitement and controlled tension
that he had not experienced since the
distant days of his old life on
Asterion and, unconsciously, he
crossed his fingers in the ritual
gesture made by a Hunter before he
faced his enemy.
About a week later, the shallow
greenish seas and sandy wastes of the
isolated little planet swelled from a
dot in the viewport to fill the screen
as the ship descended towards a
straggling settlement surrounding
the landing apron. The atmosphere
was too thin to be breathable and
they suited up for the short walk to
the largest of the envirodomes
fringing the pad. He was shown his
quarters and told that he would meet
the Formaggio Grande who had
summoned him as soon as the
captured battlecruiser which served
as his mobile headquarters, arrived.
In the meantime he was free to move
at will around the settlement, and
after stowing his gear he slipped back
into his suit to explore the area.
Near a complex of large
warehouses he could see the tall,
angular silhouettes of several
Tactical Missile Launchers, but he
was more interested in the spacecraft
dispersed around the blast pad.
Casually he made his way over to
where they lay, shimmering in the
dry heat. Edging surreptitiously from
one to another he fixed a small charge
with a microwave trigger on each and
wandered back toward the main
building, to await the return of the
battlecruiser.
Later that evening the sky blazed
with light and Rahzell watched the
battlecruiser slowly settle into a stasis
stop about 500 meters above ground
level. Shortly after the secondary
drive units shut down, the brilliant
flare of a service vessel shot away
from the ship and streaked down to
the main pad. Thirty minutes later
the intercom in his room buzzed and
a voice informed him that his
presence was required immediately
after breakfast tomorrow morning.
He acknowledged and in case there
were any weight sensors in the sleep
Like two strange monsters, the huge
missile launchers careered towards
each other as the hunters fought their
first and final duel.

94

no choice, and with a determined
stab of his finger, he hit the key on
his transmitter. There was a blinding
flash of light, both from above and
from the other side of the hangars
where he was sheltering as the
charges blew. He ran as fast as the
suit would allow as the huge ship, its
back broken, plunged downward
obliterating the greater part of the
structures below in an eruption of
flame, and a blast which sent Rahzell
sprawling in the sand. Fragments of
every craft on the planet rained down
as he struggled to his feet, and ran
back to the shed where his suit lay.
Having stripped off the clumsy rig
and climbed into his own, he ran out
to join the throng milling around the
perimeter. Then, cutting through the
confused chatter from his helmet
speaker, a calm voice started issuing
instructions, a voice disturbingly
familiar to Rahzell, but which he
could not identify. Immediately, the
crowd broke up as each man rushed
to his station. Pressing his chin onto
the transmit plate, Rahzell gave his
assumed name and requested
instructions. There was a long pause
and the same quiet voice ordered him
to return to his quarters. Something
about the tone of the reply made him
uneasy, and instead of returning, he
made his way to one of the huge
missile launchers and climbed up to
the control centre. After a few
moments spent running over the
controls, he armed the missiles and
ran up the hover drive, swinging the
towering machine round to cover the
main dome.
The brief night of PB34428 was
couch, placed enough gear on it to
simulate his weight. Donning his
suit, he slipped out of the door and
out of the airlock at the end of the
corridor.
Moving from shadow to shadow,
he worked his way round to one of
the sheds bordering the field and
darted inside. His heart thumping,
he stripped off the suit and donned
one of the engineers lift-suits
hanging from the rack. Outside
again, he walked some distance from
the pad before firing the jets to take
him to the cruiser looming overhead.
He shut down the thrust units as
soon as he came alongside the black
and yellow hull of the ship, relying
on his magnetic clamps to fix him to
its skin. As soundlessly as possible he
worked his way along astern to the
bulbous aft section housing the main
drive units until he came to one of
the Hydrogen scoops that ringed the
massive craft just forward of the
main reactor room. Reaching inside,
he dropped the pack of high power
explosive down the long funnel
towards the centre of the vessel, and
checked the display on his microwave
transmitter to make sure that the
trigger was on standby.
Rahzell drifted down to the surface
on minimum power and landed near
the sheds from which he had taken
the suit. Sensors on the battlecruiser
overhead must have picked up the
presence of a foreign object, as
alarms suddenly shrieked through
the night and figures burst out of the
main complex closing the last catches
on their suits, and lights snapped on
down the length of the ship. He had
over and the sky lightened rapidly as
the target registers settled on the
largest of the complex of buildings.
Switching to transmit, he delivered
his ultimatum, demanding that all
personnel should assemble outside
the main building and that the
signalling equipment be set to
transmit a specified Federal code
message on Hyperwave. Failure to
co-operate would result in the
immediate annihilation of the base.
There was a profound silence, then
the same quiet voice murmured in
the launcher's monitor, 'It could
only have been you, Rahzell!'
Suddenly he recognized Jeef
Kindswoog's voice, and switching
the viewscreen to full scan, saw the
massive bulk of another launcher
bearing down on him. Desperately he
swung his own machine round and
sideways as a missile blazed past. He
fired and dodged and fired again as
he headed at full thrust toward Jeef.
Both missiles blasted past inches from
the other tower, and then he was on
it. The gigantic machines collided
with a thunderous crash and Rahzell
wrestled with the controls as the
cabin tilted crazily, then
straightened. At first his screen was
blinded by dust, but as it cleared the
other tower lay broken as wisps of
vapour seeped from torn plates.
Blaster in hand, Rahzell descended
and ran to the shattered cabin. Jeef
was dead. Moments passed, then
Rahzell walked slowly back to the
tower and repeated his orders. His
monitor checked the signal as the
code went on its way to Federal
Headquarters.

96