Galactic Dreams

“Normally, yes. But do you see this button here marked invisibility? While you were loading the fuel they explained this to me. It is a new invention, never used in action before, that will render us invisible and impervious to detection by any of their detection instruments.”

“Now that’s more like it. Fifteen minutes to go, we should be getting mighty close. Turn on the old invisibility ray ….”

“Don’t!”

“Done. Now what’s your problem?”

“Nothing really. Except that the experimental invisibility device is not expected to last more than fifteen minutes before it burns out.”

Unhappily, this proved to be the case. One hundred miles above the barren, blasted surface of Biru-2 the good old Indefectible popped into existence.

In the minutest fraction of a millisecond the mighty spacesonar and super-radar had locked grimly onto the invading ship while the sublights flickered their secret signals, waiting for a correct response that would reveal the invader as one of theirs.

“I’ll send a signal, stall them. These larshniks aren’t too bright.”

Steel laughed. He thumbed on the microphone, switched to the intestellar emergency frequency, then bit out the rasping words in a sordid voice. “Agent X-9 to prime base.

Had a firefight with the patrol, shot up my codebooks, but I got all the *** ***s, ha-ha! Am coming home with a load of 800,000 long tons of the hellish krmml weed.”

The larshnik response was instantaneous. From the gaping, pitted orifices of thousands of giant blaster cannon there vomited forth ravening rays of energy that strained the very fabric of space itself. These coruscating forces blasted into the impregnable screens of the old Indefectible which, sadly, was destined not to get much older, and instantly punched their way through and splashed coruscatingly from the very hull of the ship itself. Mere matter could not stand against such forces unlocked in the coruscating bowels of the planet itself so that the impregnable impervialite metal walls instantly vaporized into a thin gas which was, in turn, vaporized into the very electrons and protons (and neutrons too) of which it was made.

Mere flesh and blood could not stand against such forces. But in the few seconds it took the coruscating energies to eat through the force screens, hull, vaporized gas, and protons, the reckless pair of valiant Corpsmen had hurled themselves headlong into their space armor. And just in time! The ruin of the once great ship hit the atmosphere and seconds later slammed into the poison soil of Biru-2.

To the casual observer it looked like the end. The once mighty queen of the spaceways would fly no more for she now consisted of no more than two hundred pounds of smoking junk. Nor was there any sign of life from the tragic wreck to the surface crawlers who erupted from a nearby secret hatch concealed in the rock and crawled through the smoking remains with all their detectors detecting at maximum gain. Report! the radio signal wailed. No sign of life to fifteen decimal places! snapped back the cursing operator of the crawlers before he signaled them to return to base. Their metal cleats clanked viciously across the barren soil, and then they were gone. All that remained was the cooling metal wreck hissing with despair as the poison rain poured like tears upon it.

Were these two good friends dead? I thought you would never ask. Unbeknownst to the larshnik technicians, just one millisecond before the wreck struck down two massive and almost indestructible suits of space armor had been ejected by coiled steelite springs, sent flying to the very horizon where they landed behind a concealing spine of rock, which, just by chance was the spine of rock into which the secret hatch had been built that concealed the crawlway from which the surface crawlers with their detectors emerged for their fruitless search, to which they returned under control of their cursing operator, who, stoned-again with hellish krmml weed, never noticed the quick flick of the detector needles as the crawlers reentered the tunnel, this time bearing on their return journey a cargo they had not exited with as the great door slammed shut behind them.

“We’ve done it! We’re inside their defenses,” Steel rejoiced. “And no thanks to you, pushing that Mrddl-cursed invisibility button.”

“Well, how was I to know?” Jax grated. “Anyways, we don’t have a ship anymore but we do have the element of surprise. They don’t know that we are here, but we know they are here!”

“Good thinking. Hssst!” he hissed. “Stay low, we’re coming to something.”