Saucer: The Conquest

Artois had insisted that he accompany Lalouette so he could answer any questions about the saucer. This flight was an unnecessary risk, of course, but if this saucer were destroyed, the people at the lunar base would be stranded. They would die when the food ran out, because the hydro-ponic ponds couldn't make enough, or when the chemicals that were used to generate oxygen and scrub the air were exhausted.

Even if the number of people were lowered to match the food supply — by whatever method — the chemicals were finite, and inevitably equipment casualties would take their toll. The machinery that scrubbed and purified the air and recycled human waste would eventually fail to work. The machinery in the lunar base wasn't like the machinery in the saucer, which had been built to essentially last forever without failure, or so it seemed.

Chadwick removed a comb from his pocket and used it on his hair. He tugged at a tangle — and lo, the whole tangled knot of red hair came out with the comb.

He stared at the comb and the wad of hair. He grabbed his hair with his free hand, tugged on it — and more came out.

God in heaven! He was losing his hair.

This wasn't supposed to be happening!

He leaned toward the mirror, blinked mightily — for some reason, his vision was a little fuzzy — and stared at the face that stared at him.

Crow's-feet around his eyes!

He backed away from the mirror a trifle — and the image blurred.

His eyes! His vision was deteriorating.

He turned away from the mirror and fumbled with the fanny pack. The serum was in two bottles. He jabbed the needle of the syringe into one, took the tiniest amount and squirted it onto his finger.

He tasted it.

Oh, my God! Water!

Chadwick's mind raced. Someone had stolen his serum, obviously. Who?

Any of them could have done it while he slept. Any of them. Including Lalouette.

Newton Chadwick charged from the head screaming and leaped across the saucer with his hands outstretched, going for Lalouette, who was still in the pilot's seat.

Jean-Paul heard the ungodly howl and turned in his seat just in time to see Chadwick stretched out in midair, flying at him like a human missile. He deflected the outstretched hands and smashed at Chadwick's neck with his fist as the American flew by, right into the instrument panel. The collision with the panel, or perhaps the pilot's fist, knocked Chadwick out; he collapsed unconscious on the floor of the saucer.

'Let me back in the seat,' Charley said to Rip, who willingly changed places.

Charley fastened her seat belt, then aligned the sight reticle with the base radio tower.

'Let's let Pierre know we're here,' she said.

'Okay,' Rip said, and grinned.

Fire!

The light appeared beside the reticle. Sparks began to appear on the base of the radio tower. Thousands of antipro-tons, perhaps tens of thousands, were passing through the metal of the tower every second. Some found protons in the metal; some continued on to burrow into the ridge a mile behind.

Fifteen seconds after she ordered the weapon fired, Charley noticed that the tower was no longer perfectly erect. It was leaning slightly. As the antimatter particles continued their bombardment, the tower slowly tilted and, in agonizingly slow motion, collapsed, raising a cloud of dust.

Ceasefire!

'I hope you didn't ruin Pierre's day,' Rip said.

Pierre Artois was in the com center dictating an ultimatum to the United Kingdom when the radio tower collapsed. Pierre finished a page, released the transmission key to clear his throat and heard nothing from the operator on earth who was recording his words.

A long five minutes passed — a silent five minutes— before the radio technician gave him the bad news. Something was wrong with the base antenna, which appeared incapable of functioning. Engineers would go outside onto the lunar surface to inspect it, a chore that would take most of an hour.

Julie looked at Pierre. 'Charley Pine. She's here with her saucer.'

'So it would appear,' Pierre said, trying to look calm and collected. He picked up the handheld radio. 'Jean- Paul, our base radio antenna seems to have become inoperative. Ms. Pine may be in the vicinity.'

One word came back, embedded in static. 'Roger.'

Jean-Paul Lalouette had seen the flashes as the antimatter particles annihilated themselves inside the metal of the tower, and he had seen the tower fall. By sheer happenstance, he had chosen a location in which to wait that prevented him from spotting the impact point of those particles that went through the tower and failed to find positrons, so he wasn't sure precisely where the other saucer was.

That it was nearby, with its optical sight centered on the radio tower, was a given. But where?

He craned his neck, searching in every direction.

Newton Chadwick was curled up in a fetal position on a chair in the back of the compartment, apparently oblivious to Lalouette and his problems.

Chadwick had been that way for the last hour, ever since he regained consciousness. 'Someone stole it,' he muttered, looking wildly at Lalouette, reaching for him.

The French pilot pointed toward the rear of the saucer and raised his right fist threateningly. The American shrank away, still muttering. 'It came out,' he said mysteriously. 'I'm aging quickly. I need more serum. God in heaven, how am I going to get it stuck on the moon?'

Lalouette didn't know what to say. Chadwick seemed to have come completely unhinged.

'My serum,' the American shouted at him, 'someone has stolen my serum.'

After that he fell silent. He sat in a chair, and seemed somehow to shrink into it, becoming smaller and smaller.

Lalouette forgot about Chadwick.

Pine wasn't out on the lava sea. He would see her ship if she were there. No, she was somewhere in these mountains, either to the right or left, or perhaps above him.

He turned his saucer and began climbing the steep gully using only the antigravity rings, trying to stay in the shadow of the ridge as he did so. He had plenty of water on board— he had filled the saucer's tanks in the two days he had been waiting for Charley Pine to fly to the moon.

So he had the fuel to use his rockets whenever the tactical situation required. Pine couldn't, not if she planned to ever get back to earth. The surplus fuel gave Jean-Paul a huge tactical advantage, and well he knew it.

Every fighter pilot since Roland Garros had used every advantage they had to kill the enemy and avoid being killed themselves. Only fools liked fair fights, and Jean-Paul Lalouette wasn't a fool. Nor, he reflected, was Charley Pine. She would shoot him in the back without the slightest iota of remorse.

Unless he killed her first.

He intended to do just that.

Charley lifted her saucer from the shadow that had shrouded it, lifted it until the canopy was just clear of the ridge line and she and Rip could see.

They watched expectantly. Sooner or later Lalouette would come looking for them, and they intended to see him first. They had to see him first.

The minutes passed, one by one, agonizingly slow.

So where is he? she asked the computer. The holographic display was blank. The ship's radar and computer system had yet to detect the other saucer, and until it did, it could not answer the question.

There — a flicker of movement, on top of the ridge to the left. As fast as Rip saw it, it disappeared.

He pointed. 'The other saucer just crossed the ridge there. Seconds ago. Going away from us.'

Charley started up the hogback using only the antigravity rings. She thought the French pilot would silhouette himself somewhere on the irregular crest when he crossed back to this side, the southern side of the range. He had to know that she had just shot up the radio tower; Artois could be relied upon to pass that word along using a short-range radio of some sort.