Battle for the Earth (12 page)

The panel was approximately two foot square and, fortunately, flat.

The table, he thought!

There in the corner under the coffee-making machine was a small, steel, portable table. It was approximately four feet square and would cover the gaping hole perfectly. The pressure in the control room would do its job to keep the table in place. Ravel ran over to the table, scattering the clutter on top including the coffee maker as he went, grabbed it, and ran across to a point directly under the hole in the roof.

The next part of his plan was really hit or miss. With all his might he launched the table upwards towards the hole, relying on the powerful current of air rushing to the hole to carry it to its new home, with luck sealing off the hole. The table hit the hole at a forty-five degree angle, and bounced precariously, finally coming to rest directly over the hole and sealing it off.

Loud applause rang out around the control room. Ravel had been so caught up in what he was doing that he hadn’t noticed everyone was watching his every move. To Ravel the whole episode had been instinctive; to everyone else, it had been miraculous.

Ravel felt embarrassed, but nodded in acknowledgement anyway. The best news was that he could hear the hiss of pressurisation in the background. Now at least, he thought, they should all be safe.

**

The weapons fire that had been battering the moon base now seemed to subside, although alarms were still sounding everywhere. It almost seemed to Ravel that the Annunaki assault vessels were retreating to the one remaining battle cruiser. It could be seen fairly clearly from the control room and, sure enough, one after another Annunaki assault craft were returning and docking with the huge craft.

Ravel took comfort in this as he could see the two ESG battle cruisers coming in ready to hover over Blue Star Moon Base. Then, suddenly, without warning two Annunaki assault craft that had been chasing down an ESG vessel broke their attack on it and released a final flurry of pulse fire onto the moon base before retreating to the waiting
Nephilimis.

Ravel saw the bright blue streak of the pulse weapons fire heading straight for them. His last thoughts were for the fifty or so souls in the control room whom he had so bravely tried to save, now alas in vain.

**

At the start of the attack Jumouk ordered his three battle cruisers to engage the Annunaki vessels. For the first time the two foes were more or less on an even standing. Lee led the attack with the
Katchinas,
this time powering in with all pulse weapons blazing, followed by the other two ESG cruisers,
Victory
and
Iron Duke.

**

Nalater stood on the bridge of the
Nephilimis,
watching one of the last pods around the moon base disintegrate to a pile of dust on the lunar surface. The main part of the moon base was still intact, but only just.

Without warning the bridge on the
Nephilimis
suddenly and violently arched and flexed, and but for the quick thinking of the Annunaki helmsman, the cascade of pulse fire from the
Katchinas
would have cut the
Nephilimis
in half. As it was she was tumbling at a very precarious angle towards the lunar surface, the helmsman fighting with all of his experience to regain altitude and yaw.

All that Nalater could do was to watch as the lunar surface and the moon base - at least what was left of it -hurtled towards the front viewing window. Slowly but surely the darkness of space started to replace the fearsome view of the moon base and the lunar surface, as the helmsman battled his ship back onto an even keel and out into open space.

Tannacha had now joined Nalater on the bridge and they could both see the other two Annunaki battle cruisers were in serious trouble. Just as he was turning to speak to Nalater, one of the huge ships shuddered in a death throe under a hail of pulse fire from the two ESG battle cruisers that had been hounding it. The spine of the huge ship fractured in four places and the cruiser crumpled like a discarded tin can being crunched underfoot before disintegrating into the lunar landscape.

**

The
Katchinas
was now in a life or death struggle with the other Annunaki cruiser. Both colossal ships unleashed a blanketing of death from their vast arrays of pulse weapons. At first sight it looked as if the Annunaki battle cruiser had the upper hand; the
Katchinas
was in a very bad way and was listing very badly to the port side with serious fires on virtually all of her decks.

All of a sudden both ESG cruisers involved in downing the first Annunaki battle cruiser, opened up with a deadly barrage of pulse weapons fire. This was directed onto the Annunaki battle cruiser which was mauling the
Katchinas.
The Annunaki battle cruiser could no longer avoid its fate and exploded in a fireball, unluckily taking the
Katchinas
with her.

Nalater immediately recalled all of the Annunaki assault ships that still hadn’t docked and any stragglers from the other cruisers. Once they were all safely aboard, he powered his engines and headed for Western Australia.

**

25

Both ESG cruisers began a search for survivors from the
Katchinas
and the moon base, Blue Star orbital. The surface of the moon was littered with escape pods, mainly from the
Katchinas.

**

Jumouk and Lee had already commenced the abandonment of the
Katchinas
well before the Annunaki cruiser had exploded around them. It had been clear to both of them that the unfortunate
Katchinas
was not going to survive this confrontation and they had taken steps to ensure minimum loss of life amongst the crew. Shuttles were sent from both cruisers and the rescue of survivors began with the retrieval of all the life pods showing signs of life.

The moon base was a total scene of devastation; Marie had survived but Ravel had died when the control room was destroyed. There were only a few pockets of survivors where the automated airtight safety doors had created areas of relative safety.

Marie was in the communications room along with thirty other people. She had gone there after communications had failed in the main control room, leaving Ravel to oversee operations there. Although the communications room was airtight for the moment, its structural integrity was in serious doubt, Marie was well aware that at any time one of the many cracks on the polycarbonate glass panels that made up the roof of the structure could fail.

Through the panels of glass that were not damaged Marie had seen the demise of the
Katchinas
and wondered if Jumouk and her good friend Lee had been able to escape safely. It was now looking like the ESG was in serious trouble and their ability to defend Earth was weakening by the day. Tens of thousands had been killed on the moon base alone and the base itself was now virtually destroyed.

Marie was just coming to terms with the hopelessness of the situation, when directly above her a shuttle had come to rest and the pilot was making desperate hand signals at her.

Marie assumed that the pilot wanted her to get ready to open the air lock, although this was not obvious from the mixed-up jumble of hand signals that the pilot was giving.

She went to the control panel next to the airtight door and prepared to open it manually. In the meantime the shuttle cleared the debris, mainly destroyed corridor from the other side of the door. This was quite a tricky operation for the pilot as he had to be very careful not to put any further strain on the airtight room for fear of structural failure.

After around twenty minutes of nail-biting tension both for the pilot, and survivors in the airtight room, he was now in the position to back his shuttle carefully up against the airtight door and create a seal for an air lock between his shuttle and the room.

Finally Marie heard the knock on the door signifying that the pilot was ready for them. She wound the small wheel which would manually open the door as fast as she could; at last the door was open wide enough to slip through into the safety of the shuttle. Once everyone was safely on board the shuttle the pilot disconnected the air lock and gently glided away from the structure, heading back towards the two ESG cruisers and safety.

**

Jumouk, Lee and Konoco were all in the conference room aboard
Iron Duke,
one of the two remaining ESG battle cruisers, when Marie came bursting through the door. She could not contain her delight at hearing both Jumouk and, especially, Lee had been rescued safely from the lunar surface. Konoco had already been on board
Iron Duke
during the furious fighting.

Lee spun round with a big grin and wrapped his arms around Marie. They were obviously more than delighted to see each other. Jumouk smiled then went back to concentrating on the job in hand. The first thing they had to determine was what forces they had left, and the battle-worthy condition of the Annunaki fleet.

Marie and Lee rejoined him at the conference table. They knew this was going to be a tough job. They had two cruisers left,
Victory
and
Iron Duke,
but they were still waiting for a head count on the assault vessels, both in space and back on Earth. Then there were the ground forces. The one thing they all agreed on was that now they had inflicted a lot of damage on the Annunaki fleet, and they had to keep the pressure on.

**

26

As Terry and his three wings of assault craft burst through the waters off Western Australia, the timing couldn’t have been worse. More or less right above them the
Nephilimis
was coming into land at Perth Airport.

Terry didn’t stand a chance. The
Nephilimis
banks of pulse weapons spat blue death all around them. Nine of the ESG assault craft almost instantaneously disintegrated, one spinning off frantically, trailing smoke and reddish yellow flames and eventually crashing into Garden Island. Taking advantage of the confusion, Annunaki assault ships spilled from the battle cruiser and mauled the ESG craft. Within a few short minutes seventeen ESG craft had been lost and only four Annunaki craft destroyed, with no damage whatsoever to the battle cruiser.

Only Grant had managed to turn tail and get his craft back to the relative sanctuary of the deep ocean. Now he sat on the sea bed in total shock. He had powered his craft down in a place called Perth Canyon, around 9,000 feet below the surface. It had all happened in less than ten minutes, he thought. Seventeen craft. Seventeen! He was having difficulty comprehending what had just happened.

Meanwhile, on board the
Nephilimis,
Nalater was jubilant. His quick thinking on spotting the wings of ESG vessels leaving the ocean was inspirational, and had been well noted by Tannacha. He had certainly delivered a humiliating blow to the ESG. In fact neither of the two commanders realised the full extent of the damage they had done.

**

Grant had given it twenty minutes on the sea bed and was now traversing the depths of the oceans, making his way back to Earth Central, his heart heavy with recent tragic events.

The journey on the way back was incident free, and Grant docked under the protection of the mag shield at Earth Central. He still had no idea of the recent events on the moon, and was taken by surprise at the sombre atmosphere within the control room. He began to wonder if they knew of the events that had just taken place off Western Australia.

**

Fiona Green, the senior control room manager, brought Grant up to speed on the catastrophic events that had befallen the Blue Star Base and the
Katchinas.
He was stunned. Worse still, he had to break the news to Fiona, who already had tears rolling down from her misty blue eyes, of what had happened off Western Australia. He composed himself.

‘Fiona.’

He had caught her just beginning another sentence.

‘Fiona.’

He repeated himself.

‘I’ve got some bad news as well, Terry’s ... well...’

He took his third sharp intake of breath in as many seconds and blurted it out.

‘Terry’s dead. I don’t know what else to say. I am so sorry, Fiona. It was almost like they knew we were coming, we ran straight into one of their battle cruisers.’

Fiona sank back and shook her head. She was having difficulty taking the news in; Terry had been extremely popular. He was always a likeable boss, and a huge source of motivation to everyone that knew him. He had also planned and carried out numerous successful covert strikes against the Annunaki, causing untold damage and confusion. Without doubt Terry’s loss was going to be a huge blow to the ESG.

‘How many of our eighteen craft survived?’

She straightaway wished she hadn’t asked the question.

Grant lowered his gaze

‘Just me, I think, I waited a while before I left the area. Didn’t see anyone else.’

Fiona turned without a word and moved directly to the communications console to contact Jumouk on board
Iron Duke
to break the tragic news. Lee watched the expression on Jumouk’s face change from neutral to sudden anguish. The news came out of the blue and took him completely by surprise.

After a few seconds’ pause Jumouk thanked Fiona and said he would contact her in the next two hours with his instructions. His next job would be to break the news to Lee. He knew how close Lee and Terry had been and that Lee would not take the death of his close friend well.