"(novel) (ebook) - Perry Rhodan 0010 - (5a) Space Battle in the Vega Sector" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Rhodan)

They were not human. As this thought pressed itself forcefully upon him, he well knew that his very humanness demanded a part in the battle. For the first time in his life be understood the Arkonide motto, which said that non-human intelligences cannot be tolerated except in the rarest of circumstances. Nonhumans like this had a basically different ethic, an entirely incredible and alien concept of existence. If they appeared with malevolent intent, there was no alternative but an all out defensive effort.

The Good Hope was only a few light-seconds removed from the wavering line of Ferron ships when a terrible roaring emerged from the alarm system of the hypersensors. It was such a palpable thundering, combined with the shrieking loudspeakers, that the swishing light symbols on the data screens were distinguished, after one blinding flash.

Something of monstrous proportions must have shaken the normal curvature of the universe in the immediate vicinity. In the laminated defence screen of the Good Hope a coalescence flamed up. For several seconds the force field collapsed completely. The current reactors raced free without load. Intermittent discharges of lightning flashed from the overload breakers of the energy converters.

The highly sensitive warp sensors melted through. Their acrid stench filled the control room and moved Rhodan, in an instinctive appraisal of the situation, to order space helmets closed. The transparent spheres clicked into place in the magnetic collar rings of their space suits. Air conditioning, oxygen, and radio systems switched on automatically.

The Good Hope, travelling now only at a quarter of the speed of light, found itself instantly in an invisible energy discharge of unbelievable force. Blue fire engulfed the Arkon steel outer hull. Everything that the invading spaceships had thrown at them became as nothing compared with this mighty power.

Everyone heard a sudden shrill outcry. It broke through the space helmet speakers, kindling in the brains of the humans a spark of panic. Rhodan saw Khrest run to the hypercommunicator console. The Arkonide scientist began speaking into the lighted transference screen even as the trembling of the ship’s hull subsided.Until that moment, Rhodan had been occupied in maintaining some semblance of control over the Good Hope. Now suddenly he saw the monstrous shape of steel and energy that had emerged from hyperspace at best only thirty miles away.

"No!" he groaned. Then he yelled, "Thora, is that…?"

"An Arkonide battleship!" she interrupted hastily. "Imperial class, the latest design of the Empire. I’m thoroughly familiar with it. With one of those I could conquer entire solar systems. Perry, our people have come! Khrest is transmitting the recognition code signal. They must have found out on Arkon what was happening in the Vega system. Just look, Perry! An invincible giant with magnificent equipment and weapons. It must have a diameter of 2,400 feet, by Earthly measurement. I— What are you doing?"Rhodan’s knuckles whined as he gripped the step switches of the four main drivers. Blinking control lights indicated a 180 degree reversal of the field tubes. In the middle of the turning manoeuvre, the ship sprang into maximum flight Rhodan’s face was drawn tight. Reginald Bell was the first to comprehend. His hoarse cry of warning rang through the radio coms. Only the two Arkonides continued to rejoice. But after a few moments, Khrest drew back from the hypercommunicator, deeply disturbed."No contact!" he cried out. "The main computer brain of the battleship should have responded at once to my valid code signal. I don’t understand. What—"

"Haven’t you realized yet that your Arkonide battleship is not manned by Arkonides?" Bell shouted impatiently."The spaceship is turning about, opening fire on the Ferronian defence line," came the voice of the mutant Ralf Marten, who had taken over the detectors.

Rhodan could do nothing more than he had already. The space giant, a product of the supreme pinnacle of Arkonide technology, loomed up ponderously in the wake of the fleeing Good Hope. In spite of its gargantuan size it arrived at an equal acceleration. When a violet bolt of lightning shot out of the great, massive sphere, it was far too late to dodge it. With the absolute velocity of light, the pulse ray was almost instantaneous. The battleship’s fire control officer had not given the tiny auxiliary ship the slightest chance to escape.The titanic ray beam was of the highest focused intensity; yet its cross-section must have measured a good 120 feet. If it had made a direct hit, the Good Hope would have been converted into atomized gases. But they survived the deafening clamour of the glancing blow. Crackling lightning discharges came from the collapsing defence screen, which had no resistance to offer such ravening forces. Degraded now to a mere speck of dust, the space sphere became a helpless plaything of a raging tidal wave of energy that the giant battleship generated by its close pursuit.

Perry Rhodan watched the indicators tell him that almost all machinery of the auxiliary vessel was suddenly ceasing to function. The echoing clang of bulkhead safety hatches closing also indicated that even the glancing blow had been too much. Before Rhodan was torn from his control seat he was aware of the force field main switch booming over. It was designed, in case of a catastrophe, to switch all emergency power into the inertial absorbers. If this had not occurred, no life could have continued to exist on board the ship, which had been torn with such powerful force from its course.



Major Deringhouse, who had approached within nearly a mile of the Good Hope in his swift fighter as a result of the mother ship’s breaking manoeuvre, suddenly witnessed the conversion of the space sphere into a hurling ball, as though it had been struck by a bat. He was in the best position to observe that the weird energy beam had only glanced off the lower hemisphere of the hull; yet it left a bright white glow. The Arkon steel melted down like butter in the piercing heat. Glistening metallic vapours billowed from the underpart of the ship and threw a flaming comet’s tail of burning gases into its wake. The bright gleam of the defence screen was extinguished-all he could see was that white glowing underhull.He called desperately to Rhodan and others of the crew on board the Good Hope, but there was no answer. It was all he could do to follow the ill fated, reeling hulk that fled from the terrible punishment it was taking. Far ahead glided the spherical super giant, its weapon turrets flaring destruction. It was transforming the semiorderly Ferron defence line into a scattering confusion of dodging, panic driven shapes, which were being decimated by the terrible onslaught of this immeasurably superior firepower.

It spelled a death blow for the Ferrons. White faced and dry eyed, Deringhouse stared at the visiscreen of his fighter. The Good Hope was racing toward the ninth planet, the mortal scar on its hull still glowing fiery red.

"Apparently they must have survived that hit," said Captain Klein’s voice over the intercom from the second fighter ship. "Let’s wait it out. That was only a flesh wound. If I have to I can try to anchor onto the upper launch tube. They’re only travelling at thirty percent of light speed."

"A flash wound?" Deringhouse laughed bitterly. "Where in the devil did this space monster come from?" Suddenly, there it was, with no warning at all. Come on, close in. They’re flying straight toward the planet!"





CHAPTER 8

The Good Hope required eight hours to complete the journey with its two remaining utility drivers. It would have gone faster if the badly damaged inertial neutralizers had been working. Since they were out of action, deceleration was limited to the absorption capacity of the intermittently operating projectors.

The entrance into the thick atmosphere of the ninth planet was like a high dive into water. Rhodan was forced to subject the crew to an extremely high G deceleration, because the inertial forces generated could no longer he absorbed. Also, he had to pour on the rough retropulsion fast, because at first contact with the air molecules the recoil and shock field projectors ceased to function.

So it was that the auxiliary craft hurtled downward through the thickening air masses like a glowing meteor. If the antigrav units had also given up the ghost, undoubtedly the Good Hope would have been violently shattered. It was barely possible to break the fall of the almost weightless vessel, but the landing completed their disaster. The gear on the hull’s underside had been destroyed. During the wearisome deceleration they had not dared to attempt repairs because aside from high temperatures deadly gamma radiations had been detected emanating from the injured area.The fact remained that in the fraction of a second out there the Good Hope had become a hopeless wreck. There could he no further thought about faster than light space travel now. The hyperconverters, indispensable to the generation of a protective warp field, were totally destroyed. Repair crews in protective suits had found only fused clumps of metal later when they broke into the converter compartment. Other gear might have been returned to a workable condition, but the essential equipment was beyond hope.

Even before Perry Rhodan entered the atmosphere under Chaktor’s guidance, he was aware of the incontrovertible fact that he had become a prisoner of the Vega system.Following their landing in the ninth planet’s main city, they were very frigidly received by the Ferronian space officers. The precaution was taken to remove the badly damaged Good Hope from the unprotected landing field. Now it lay in a deep bunker, the most practical place that could he found on this distant world, still cooling slowly and popping like an iron.Klein and Deringhouse made perfect landings in their swift space fighters, but Perry sent them back up to cover the returning Ferronian fleet’s landing, since he considered this much contribution to the defence as indispensable. After Deringhouse reported over hyperwave that the strange giant battleship had closed ranks with the Topidian invasion fleet, a cold smile touched his lips. From then on he didn’t have much to say. They found themselves on a strange world among alien people who seemed to regard the heavy damage to the Good Hope with strongly mixed feelings. Dr. Haggard’s psychological analysis of the situation was superfluous. Rhodan well knew that the initial storm of enthusiasm for him and the valiant Good Hope had been toned down conspicuously.Chaktor, the Ferron they had fished out of the void, sat sombrely in the control room. Bell and the technicians were there, trying to make at least the more essential controls functional. Khrest seemed to be inwardly broken. He sat in a corner, dull and apathetic. Thora, more sensitive than the Arkonide scientist, struggled against an incipient nervous breakdown.

The mutants hovered about, attempting to evaluate the situation. Ralf Marten, who possessed the most unusual gifts among the group, probed the immediate and more distant surroundings. He had been sitting for about an hour in one of the control seats as though entranced. From time to time he revealed what he had seen and heard through the eyes and ears of the Ferron leaders. It seemed that the general mood in relation to the landed humans was not malevolent. There was merely a general disillusionment after their initial faith in the Good Hope had come to such an abrupt end. The telepaths confirmed Marten’s findings.In view of this, Rhodan finally issued instructions to return the fighter robots to their compartment. Reginald Bell emerged from the narrow manhole of the emergency stairs. The antigrav lifts had ceased to function. Cursing softly, Bell peeled himself out of the heavy protective suit and reached immediately for a cigarette. Meanwhile, those present in the control room had developed the impression that Perry Rhodan had changed into a silent dreamer. He had hardly spoken a word, after issuing the orders concerning the robots.

Now he raised his head. Thoughtfully, he got up from the control chair. Glances were exchanged all around.