"Sir", Specialist Anna Knox banged on the door, "Sorry to wake you"
"Hnh", Ralph Jenkinson blinked at the light invading his room, and rose onto one elbow, "Do we have a problem, Specialist?" he grunted.
"Possibly sir"
"What is it?", he rolled off the ledge, pulling his boots on, and reaching for the hooded cloak he kept on a peg above it, "Pressure?"
"No sir", Anna was hesitant. Like all ten of the Moonbase crew she well knew the dangers inherent in their environment, and how simply staying alive could be a struggle, but this was different. She took a deep breath,
"Sir, Tracking have an anomaly and its coming in fast"
"Oh?" he had risen to his feet, his arms struggling for the sleeves of his cloak, "Not another lander?"
"Even if there is one not on the chart, its approaching from the wrong direction, sir"
"One that is possible, Specialist?"
They were outside his room now, and he closed the door behind him, wondering if he had been woken for a mere chimera, or if one of the other powers was trying to pull a fast one - certainly a serious matter, but perhaps not one the duty officer ought to have woken the base commander for.
"Lieutenant Mayfield is of the opinion that if it had swung round in a contrary direction, we would have detected it long ago at its azimuth point."
"Yeah", Jenkinson mulled it over, nodding, "so what is it?"
At that moment the base alarms began to sound, strobing red lights illuminating the hallways and the digital klaxon blaring everyone awake. Whatever it was, it was obvious that Lieutenant Mayfield had decided that it was a threat.
"Come on!" yelled Jenkinson, grabbing her arm and rushing towards the command centre.
- - - - - - -
"Incoming does not conform to any known lander type" Captain Aloys Vienne was perplexed, "Nor does it match any known orbiter configuration."
"Could it be a Earth orbital vessel?" Base Commander, the Duc de Gramont was clutching at straws
"Out here?" his second, Helene Bedou looked at him with barely veiled contempt, though that was also her normal view of the aristocrat whom she thought had no place running a base of this importance, even if it were one less than half the size of the British establishment.
"Sir!" Vienne turned towards him, "Computers are reading a mass to density ratio of 4.6!"
"Insane" the duc came across, "Recalibrate!"
"Belay that" Helene stepped in, "Sir", she said the word through gritted teeth, "Recalibration of the equipment will take five minutes and we do not have five minutes", she pointed to the trajectory screen where a long and large green flash was marking the incoming...thing.
"Flash message from Horizon" Communications Officer Raoul Dupreys was the youngest of the six crew, but perhaps at this moment the calmest in the room, "Priority - anomaly is not of human construction..."
His voice tailed off, and everyone looked at him.
"Get..." the duc coughed, "Get that confirmed!" he barked.
A moment later, Raoul sat back and spread his arms wide
"Horizon confirms sir"
There was another beep from his equipment and he listened carefully, then looked up
"The Russians are confirming also"
"Damn the Russians!" the duc exploded. It was not altogether an unreasonable statement; the Russian Moonbase Xenia was smaller even than the French, and had only been manned all-year round for the past two years, despite having been constructed back in 2004.
"Sir", Helene spoke quietly and carefully, "We should relay a signal home...while we have the chance"
The duc de Gramont stared at her with icy eyes, then nodded
"Take down and transmit the following", he instructed Raoul.
- - - - - - -
"What the Hell...?" Sybil Cairns was the only officer on duty in this period, this being the off-period both for Earth launches and for Lunar missions. Later in the day, there would be something up from Earth, and the regular message back from the Moon, usually of the "Nothing sent" variety, but occasionally of course they would send something Serenity's way.
Now, though the communications link was alive...but
"What the Hell...!" she said again, thumbing the switch
"Horizon, Serenity repeat your message with verification"
That sent, she pressed the alarm, knowing just how popular that would make her, and also opened up the relay channel to the British Spaceport in Miskitia
"Serenity urgent to command" she said, hoping that it was not just some moronic prank, or a seriously bad case of space dementia.
"Command, Serenity, go ahead"
"Unconfirmed message from Horizon - tracking anomaly, not of human construction."
"Serenity, do you mean a meteor strike or..." the voice tailed off.
A moment later another voice replaced it,
"Serenity, this is Marshal Leopard. Activate all weapons systems and drop out of synch. Fire boosters and align with the defence network - do it NOW!"
"Serenity aye!"
Acting purely on impulse and aware of her colleagues pulling themselves quickly into the command module, Sybil smashed the glass housing of the weapons button and rammed it down.
"Alert!" she said as calmly as she could, "Serenity is battle active! Repeat we are going battle active"
She turned to where her colleague James Hunt had lowered himself into his webbing and was staring at her open-mouthed,
"Activate boosters, cut all synch relays and drop into defence alignment"
He continued to stare at her
"NOW!" she yelled.
- - - - - - -
"Some sort of flares?" Harold Thorpe studied his instruments, the readouts relayed to him by the satellite network orbiting the Earth.
"I don't think so", Marcus was his brother, three years his junior but acknowledged as one of the best young computer scientists of his generation, "Energy discharges..." he said after a minute.
"Energy discharges..." Harold looked at him, "You mean...oh"
"Some sort of high-powered laser"
"Oh...shit"
"Priority message!" the disembodied voice of Communications boomed over their head, "Imperial Command places all forces on maximum alert. We are now under Emergency War Orders. Rotas and schedule to follow"
"Huh?" Harold looked at his brother, "War?" he said, "With whom?"
"Aliens", Marcus sat down and was very still for a moment, "Presumably the attack on the Moon was the first move, next they will take out the Earth orbiting stations, and then the satellites."
"All of them?" Harold squeaked.
Without the satellites much of the base's function would be meaningless.
Marcus was on his feet again
"No, not all of them - not if we are quick. I need a patch through to Space Command."
"They won't give us the time of day!" Harold protested.
"They will if you tell them it is me!" Marcus had never made a play on the greater regard which he, as an individual was held in, but if there was a moment to use it, it was now.
"Tracking to Coms, urgent" Harold made the link, the Tai Shan base being so large that it was always quicker to treat different departments as if they were in another country, "Marcus Thorpe requests and requires immediate patch through to Space Command."
Instead of the angry refusal that would have come if he had made the request in his name, there was a brief silence, then a woman's voice,
"Opening thirty second burst", she sounded apologetic, "That's the best we can do."
"Understood"
"Put Marcus on" the woman said.
Harold handed the headphones across to his brother and vacated the seat.
- - - - - - -
"Clear coms relays!" the command took them all by surprise but they moved swiftly to do so.
"Open thirty second channel to Tai Shan"
Raymond Dunn was the officer whose network covered China and he hurried to patch it through.
"Scramble and silent"
Everyone in the room looked at each other, but the demand for silence overcame the natural desire to ask questions, to wonder aloud, to question how this signal could possibly have such high priority.
Thirty seconds later the intercom blasted
"Resume normal coms"
Then added
"Open auto relays to Excelsior. We haven't got time to do this by the book"
"Relays open", the officer whose network covered this was pretty, twenty and looked to be on the verge of wetting herself
"Spin up gyros, and disengage clamps"
"Signal up" she squeaked
"Enter coded signal....what is it?" the unseen voice asked someone and a few seconds later a second voice, nervous and thin was on the line
"3-1-2-7-4-alpha-alpha-9"
"Signal up" she said faintly, taking her time to get it right.
"Now fire the blast doors on Excelsior"
"Signal up"
"Erase last transmissions"
"What?" she half rose from her seat, "Sir?"
"Erase the record of these transmissions!" he yelled.
She did so, then fled the room, leaving a wet patch behind her upon the chair.
- - - - - - -
"We are out of synch" Lieutenant Aaron Peters was sweating profusely in the co-pilot's seat. It had not been an easy manoevre, and the worst lay ahead.
"Excelsior is..." behind the pilots Jairus Monck's voice faded away, "I don't know what its doing" he concluded.
"That doesn't help" Captain Shari Maguire gritted her teeth, "Try!"
"Sir" Jairus sounded a mite sheepish, "Its no longer holding station and there appears to have been some kind of explosion"
"The anomaly?" she frowned.
"It is still enroute from the Moon" he said.
"An accident?"
He was quiet for a moment, then said
"I don't think so, sir, it seems to have been a deliberate manoevre"
"Then presumably Command knows what its doing"
"We should all hope for that!" Aaron grunted.
The Excelsior was the control hub for the orbital defence satellites, and a lot of its systems and exact functions were classified and not known even to the pilots and crews of the Earth orbiters, those vehicles which lifted off with regular frequency from the launch pads of Miskitia, and which kept the British space missions in operation.
"Um" Jairus Monck said, "Thingy...shit, contact!"
"Stay with it, officer!" Shari snapped
"Sorry sir, I was going to say target, but its French"
"Best we remember that" the Captain laughed, "Detail?"
"French orbiter Dauphin one aspect lower than us", he did some quick calculations, "I think its heading full speed for their space station"
"Anything might make sense in the circumstances" Shari said, "Keep an eye on it, but keep it secondary"
"Yes sir"
- - - - - - -
"It is a direct order from Versailles!" Base Commander Henri Dupleix was having no more of his guest's impertinence, "I don't care, Your Highness, but I am NOT disobeying your uncle"
Philippe, Duc d'Anjou stared at him, then slapped him across the face, or rather the visor of his golden spacesuit,
"I am Marshal of France!" he growled, "My orders supercede those of a mere Base Commander"
"With respect" Henri spat, "The Dauphin will be here in ten minutes, and you WILL be on board when it leaves."
"I protest!"
"Protest away", Henri had had enough of the arrogant fool, "And lodge a formal complaint when you get back!"
"I will"
Henri left him in the outer airlock, and quickly pulled himself up towards the central core of the space station, removing his helmet but keeping it near him as per combat regulations.
"Report" he snapped, entering the control hub.
"Anomaly is closing fast." Stephanie Rust was a veteran of the space service, but her voice was choked, "The Dauphin will get here first, but its going to be close..."
"Transmit station log"
"Transmitting"
"Break out the weapons!"
"Sir!"
He sat back into his webbing and closed his eyes. Weapons, for all the good it would do them! The energy signatures from the lunar surface seemed to tell of a deadly, swift and massive laser attack. The space station could hardly expect anything less, but just in case they would be ready - just in case they had a chance, and just in case it was to be something even worse than death.
"Dauphinon final approach" Stephanie said
"Kill the safeties and dock her" he rose from the webbing, "Tell them to collect and blow."
"Yes sir"
- - - - - - -
"We were below their horizon, sir" Otto Hardinger sighed, "The French, British and Russians were not"
"Very well" Count Maximilian von Planck was exhausted, "Its gone, then?"
"Its approaching probable range on the Earth orbitals"
"What's first in its sights?"
"The charts say Serenity but the instruments seem to indicate they, ah, moved. It looks like Elysee is going to bear the brunt."
"It is a strange feeling to feel sorry for the French"
The count moved back to the rest room leaving Otto and the only other permanent resident, Heinrich Bar, to their own devices. For several months of each year, Moonbase Adler was augmented by teams from the landers, but not at the moment. The next one was due in two weeks time, but, well hope seemed a forelorn entity.
"How long will the rations last?" Heinrich asked the obvious question.
"We can make them last six months" Otto sounded bleak.
Six months would mean emergency issue only, and then what? Without food their energy levels would drop, and all for what? It made sense if there would be a rescue coming, but with the anomaly heading towards Earth who really thought that?
"Do you think it will destroy Earth or just raid it?"
Otto looked at his colleague and shrugged,
"They're aliens" he said, "Who can read the mind of an alien?"
"Yes but" Heinrich sighed, "What would you do if you were they?"
"Say hello?" Otto shrugged, "I don't have any personal desire to destroy anybody..."
- - - - - - -
"Blow the seals!"
Chief Engineer Gustave Sylvestre had no problem obeying his commander's instructions, even though such a violent act would render the space station unable to dock any other vessel until repaired.
"Blown!"
There was a massive jolt and then the orbiter was falling.
"Anomaly opening fire!" Charles Lefebvre snarled, "Targeting the station"
There were collective sighs all round, though not a one of them would have dreamt of wishing such a fate on Elysee and all who served aboard her.
"We cannot just run away!" the duc d'Anjou forced his way up to the cockpit area, "Commander, I demand..."
"Sedate him!" Luc Juneau was taking no chances. He had two imperatives and if sedating the king's nephew was the way to succeed in both then so be it.
"Done", Security Officer Marc Zedee laid the prone body of the duc out in a webbed couch and fastened him in.
"We are about to crash dive the atmosphere"
"It is not recommended" his number two, Yvette Dutroux said with a grin.
"I'll remember that" Juneau grunted.
The Dauphin screamed into the atmosphere, its forward shielding glowing red hot, streaks of flames coursing down its sides, alarms blaring all over the orbiter as systems blew and relays fused.
Finally they emerged from Hell, a half dozen fires burning that were soon seen to by Zedee and his team as they were able to release themselves from the webbing.
"Now comes the fun part" the commander said
"I thought THAT was the fun part?" Yvette asked, with a raised eyebrow
"We have orders to land in France"
"In France?" she pursed her lips, "Its a bit vague"
"Its a bit insane" he said
France's space ports were the usual take off and landing locations, though a half dozen emergency landing points existed for the orbiter, none of them in France itself, all of them across the world-spanning empire.
"I imagine all airforce bases will be on high alert with planes taking up all the runways" Sylvestre had come forward, "If we try any of those we'll probably collide with something"
"Almost certainly" Juneau agreed
"What else is there?" Yvette was wracking her brains
"Roads?" suggested Zedee, "All fires out, sir"
"Roads?" Sylvestre laughed, "I can't imagine any of those being clear"
"I can" Juneau said after a moment, "The new A-17 extension"
"What?" Sylvestre rarely spent a day in France, preferring to holiday in Louisiana or New Bearn when not in space.
"Ten miles" Yvette nodded, "but it curves"
"Then we will just have to curve with it" Juneau snapped
"We've never done so before" she reminded him
"Nobody ever needed us to"
"Sound the collision" she said
A honking like a flock of agitated geese started up as the orbiter roared towards Paris and the almost completed autoroute extension...