Legacy (3 page)

“They’ll never make it,” Gideon said softly. He lifted Lydia to her feet and pushed her toward the complex of huts hidden behind the wall of the crater.

The three enemy ships that Gideon had seen before reappeared. Without viewing them up close he knew the silverish saucers would be old and scarred from many engagements on and around Ophillias and their home world. He watched as their exotic weapons opened fire. The first six shots were evenly dispersed among
Guidon
and
Ranger
as they turned their bows around to bring their main batteries to bear. The large turrets swiveled to line up on the three enemy saucers.

Gideon watched in horror and then flinched as the first laser beams struck the larger of the two ships. Pieces of the ship’s pressure hull and of the main deck composed of spiderweb girders exploded outward. Noiseless and horribly bright,
Ranger
returned fire with her twenty-inch twin forward cannon, quickly followed by a salvo from their number-two forward mount. A bright flash of greenish light exited the crystal-tipped barrels, followed by an expanding gas slug of nitrogen that was used for cooling the large bore and diamond tip at the end of the great cannon. The nitrogen froze immediately as it exited the barrels, creating a blanket of fog that from a distance resembled smoke. The twin laser shots from each mount were infused with particles made up of two thousand ball bearing–sized steel balls that passed through a hole in the crystal refractor. This volley was soon joined by twin shots of infused light from the smaller fourteen-inch cannon of
Guidon
. Major Gideon saw the first enemy saucer vanish in a gut-wrenching, metal-shredding wreck as the laser slugs punched large holes in it. The three-hundred-foot-diameter saucer started to lose its orbit, sliding toward the lunar surface in a silent death plunge.

The second saucer in the enemy line broke from the remaining twin formation. It made a run directly at the lunar surface and the small base inside the crater. The major heard the chatter and screaming on the radio. Whatever jamming had been placed on lunar-space communication was now inactive as the captain of
Ranger
was heard asking the condition of his sister ship
Guidon
. Gideon, still holding Lydia’s hand, stopped and looked up as the battle raged directly over their heads. In the distance, maybe fifty miles away, they saw the silent impact of the first enemy saucer as it slammed into the lunar surface and blew to pieces. The eerily quiet death in the moon’s vacuum belied the shaking violence of the impact.

Above, the enemy saucer that had broken away started firing toward the lunar surface. He could see the green-tinted intermittent lasers as they struck the outer walls of the crater.

Bright flashes overhead announced that
Ranger
had fired again. Finally, the heavily damaged
Guidon
answered the bell and also fired, producing the eye-fooling slowness of the faster-than-light weapons. It was still amazing to behold as the laser blasts streaked toward their target. The lone enemy saucer in a high orbit tried to maneuver out of the way of the particle weapons fired at it, but it was too late. The four rounds struck the top of the saucer’s pressure hull in an enormous shower of flame and sparks fueled by oxygen released from the ship. Gideon and Lydia watched as the giant saucer broke into two distinct pieces and started an out-of-control fall toward the moon’s surface.

As
Guidon
and
Ranger
started ejecting thousands of gallons of water that transformed into ice crystals in an effort to cloud and diffuse any return fire, they began turning toward the remaining saucer.

For the first time the major let out a yell of triumph. They just might fend off this last, desperate attack. But his joy was short-lived as two things happened simultaneously. First, five distinct lines of green laser fire struck the base camp inside the crater. All Gideon could see were chunks of moon rock and white pieces of composite material from the enclosures—and then, to his horror, un-space-suited bodies sailing into the black night. The crater looked like a volcano spewing forth not red-hot magma like the planet below but man-made structures and men themselves as the lasers struck their oxygen and weapons storage areas. The second thing that happened was that the saucer now cascading in pieces to the moon below had fired all of her advanced lasers in the last second before her own death. As Gideon and Lydia dodged debris from the base camp,
Guidon
exploded above them. The death of their battleship was so sudden and so complete they didn’t realize at first what had happened.

The remaining enemy vessel was placing laser shot after laser shot into the base camp from a half kilometer up, where the saucer had slowed almost to a hover to maintain altitude long enough to destroy the last remaining enemy colony.

The major glanced skyward at the spot where
Guidon
had vanished. He could see no debris remaining larger than a city block. But he did see the burning and smoldering
Ranger
as it majestically righted herself after receiving the near-death blows from
Guidon
’s destruction. The reinforced armor of the smaller ship had peppered her hull with millions of particles as it exploded. The molten debris had set
Ranger
’s two forward turrets afire before exploding outward and sending the crews of the four massive guns spinning into the cold death of space. Gideon gripped Lydia’s hand with first shock and then pride as
Ranger
fired her main engines and started her turn for the enemy saucer far below.

“She has no forward armament!” Lydia cried out.

Gideon looked at
Ranger
as she sped toward the enemy warship. The entire superstructure forward of her bridge was glowing red-hot from the dual assault of enemy fire and the brunt of
Guidon
’s final death rattle.

“What is she doing?” Lydia asked.

“The only thing she can do. She’s going to ram the bastards.”

“He thinks the base is still intact. Can we call her off?”

“She’s doomed anyway. She’s hurt too badly,” Gideon said as he watched the terrible race far above him. Suicidal ventures were quickly becoming the norm of his civilization.

Lydia reached for the radio transmit button on her wrist and started calling frantically. The enemy saucer, apparently seeing the threat coming its way, had started to rise back into a higher orbit, blasting at the heavily damaged
Ranger
with her now retargeted lasers. Gideon looked down at the diminutive blonde, who had started crying as she failed to raise
Ranger
. The major reached out and pulled Lydia’s arm down. She struggled and fought with him, finally collapsing against his chest, shaking, giving in to the hopelessness of the situation. Gideon’s eyes went from the charging
Ranger
to the big blue planet below them. He shook his head and held Lydia closer just as
Ranger
slammed itself bow-on into the enemy saucer. The resulting explosion from the fuel and munitions of both vessels sent out debris in a deadly arc that smashed into the lunar surface, causing ten thousand small eruptions in the siltlike dust of the dead moon.

The final battle for his home world ended silently, with less than ten minutes from beginning to end. Over six thousand men and women had vanished in a final insanity-driven burst of mayhem.

Gideon let his knees fold. Both he and Lydia fell to the dusty surface and then they sat that way, holding each other for long minutes.

It was twenty minutes after the explosions subsided that Lydia stopped crying, and with effort raised her head. She saw the blue planet, which was just starting to set. Half the world was covered in fine white clouds and the other half lay in darkness. She turned away after a moment and clung to the major even tighter than before.

“What were they calling the planet?” she asked. “I mean, were they still going to use the same name as the one we were brought up with and learned in school?”

“As far as I know it was still the same,” Gideon answered. He looked at the blue planet, setting for the lunar day. He suddenly stood and pulled Lydia to her feet.

“Come on, we have a lot of work ahead of us! Those downed saucers might have those mechanical sons of bitches on them. Soon they’ll activate—and they don’t negotiate.”

Lydia didn’t question the large man as he pulled her along toward the crumbling crater where the science facility once sat. She did turn and watch the last of the blue planet sink away to nothing.

“We need to name our new home something, maybe the essence of what it really is,” Lydia said in her quiet and disillusioned state.

“We have to get there first, and then you can name it any damn thing you want.”

*   *   *

It was almost two full months after the last surviving members of the human race left for the new world below that the war pods embedded in the destroyed superstructures of the downed enemy saucers activated. They came alive only because their programmed brains hadn’t sensed any movement from the saucers that had crashed on the lunar surface. Designed as storm troopers for a race of cowardly yet advanced aggressors, the pods started dropping free of their modules into the lunar dust.

Only seventeen of the mechanical soldiers had survived the destruction of the saucers and their masters. Twelve of the ten-foot-diameter pods shot free of the mangled remains of the saucers and went to their programmed destination—the planet below. Their sensors immediately picked up advanced electrical sources that the primitive world should not have on its surface. They locked on to the signals and shot into space with fiery engine bursts, their destination Earth. The mechanical killers’ programmed orders from their masters were to eliminate the last vestiges of mankind.

The last five pods rolled out of the wreckage in ball form. Three started roving the lunar surface searching for the enemy they had been programmed to kill, while the other two rolled toward the last place their telemetry had told them humans had been—the crater. Each of the five pods, after not discovering their enemy, settled into the lunar dust, their mechanical bodies curled into fetal positions inside their shells. Their duty would be to wait, no matter how long, for man to return to the surface of the lunar world.

BERLIN, GERMANY JANUARY 1, 1945

The minister of armaments for the Third Reich stood silently in front of the most powerful man in Nazi Germany other than the Führer himself. The smallish, sheepish little man sat behind his desk with not so much as a single oiled hair out of place, and a uniform that had been recently cleaned and pressed. Even while his world was falling apart and burning around him, the small rat managed to maintain an air of superiority. The man behind the desk studied the last page in the brown folder that had been delivered to him only moments before. The reich minister for armament production, Albert Speer, stood waiting for a reaction by the former chicken farmer who was now serving as the head of the most powerful entity outside of the German army, the SS.

Heinrich Himmler adjusted his glasses as he read. When he was done he made a show of placing the paper perfectly in line with the previous pages of the report and then slowly closed the folder. He tapped the thick binder with a single finger as though he were coming to some monumental conclusion derived from careful thought. However much Himmler tried to disguise his demeanor, Speer knew the calculating little bastard did nothing, not even speak, without thoroughly thinking it through beforehand. The demonstration he was putting on, in the reich minister’s view, had become tiresome.

“I must say that I do not appreciate being hijacked on the way to the Reich Chancellery.”

Himmler smiled and looked toward Speer with a fatherly look. “Such a word—hijacked? I merely asked my men to inquire if you would join me before filing your report on Columbus prior to your presentation to the Führer, just so we could chat awhile. And since so much of the operational success of this project has come from this office, I felt a briefing by you, to me, was not out of the question.”

Speer looked around the spartan office of this prolific mass murderer. He removed his brown saucer cap and placed it under his left arm, all the while feeling uncomfortable in the cold space of his surroundings. His discomfort was also due to his closeness to the chicken farmer—a nickname for Himmler that had caught on among the intellectuals of Hitler’s inner circle, a group that Speer knew was ever dwindling.

“I have ordered the excavation stopped, and for the site to be destroyed immediately, the remains of the artifacts buried,” Speer said, as defiantly and calmly as he could. He watched the practiced reaction of Himmler as the impish little man looked at him with a trace of a smile. “At least until we can negotiate our finds with the Allies. After all, I would rather think the Führer would prefer not to have the artifacts fall into the hands of the Bolsheviks, wouldn’t you?”

“So I have read in your report, Herr Reich Minister,” Himmler said, ignoring his statement about the Red Army. “I wonder if such an action is warranted at this time.”

Speer noticed the comment wasn’t phrased in the form of a question.

“The discovery of the bodies and of the technology came at too late a date. The properties of the ancient weaponry have yet to be unlocked, and coupled with the fact that we were unable to ascertain the age of the bodies I felt it necessary to destroy the site and bury all until we can turn the information we have over to the Americans or the British.”