Chapter 10: Both Sides Move

THE GREAT AIRLOCK on the pirates’ asteroid opened. From the depths of the abyss five ships came forth. Emerging from the stone tunnel, they moved into formation and then headed for the Asteroid Belt. Lurton Zimbardo’s lieutenant Crass held the authority over the small fleet. Each ship was sheathed with the radar bender, making it invisible to the normal means of detection used by Starlight Enterprise, Space Command, and other Earth-based entities.

As the ships came into the Belt, Crass gave the command to the other four pilots. “The target asteroid has been located. Proceed with the destruction of the sats.” The sats were small, unmanned electronic satellite observers, distributed throughout the Asteroid Belt to aid in research and navigation. They monitored movement in the Belt and provided constantly updated information on the location, speed, and direction of major asteroids.

The four ships moved into pre-determined areas in the quadrants around a small, heavy, black, iron asteroid that was speeding smoothly along on its course.

Crass stood on the deck of his ship and gazed out at the small asteroid. He spoke as if to himself. “There it is, the first of five surprise packages for our beloved Mars.” The pirate leader waited patiently for the pilots of the four companion ships to report back. He expected that their assignment would take about 45 minutes-maybe as long as an hour. The first report came in 42 minutes later.

“Mr. Crass, this is Slant. We located three sats in quadrant two and destroyed them all.” The other reports came in only moments later. A total of fourteen sats had been located within 600 miles of the asteroid where Crass was waiting, and all had been destroyed. Crass opened the intercom on his own ship.

“We’re clear. Go to it.”

Over a dozen space-suited men spilled out of the airlock. They had been waiting for the order from Crass. Each carried a large crate, nearly weightless in the Asteroid Belt. They maneuvered easily through space and floated gently to the surface of the asteroid-a dark 100-yard wide clump of dirty rock. Immediately the men began to distribute the crates evenly over the surface of the rock.

The grim, forbidding, pocked asteroid became the site of frenzied work. The crewmen removed sheet after sheet of dark metal from the crates and fastened them to the floating chunk of iron. Tiny flames showed where the irregular metal of the asteroid was being shaped to fit the plates the pirates were anchoring to its surface.

In one hemisphere three other men were attaching power and propulsion units. They sank holes several feet deep and inserted tubes, fuel tanks, and a control mechanism. At one place near the asteroid’s equator a technician was installing a communications unit.

The four companion ships had returned and remained on guard less than a quarter mile from the asteroid. In less than two hours the work on the asteroid was completed and the crewmen reentered their ship.

“Take us home,” ordered Crass. The five ships left the Belt and began the quick journey back to their port. Crass smiled most of the way back.

On Mars in the communications tower of Eagle City, technician Mel Golden was puzzled. Some of his data had just dried up. Mel was responsible for monitoring the sats in a large segment of the Asteroid Belt, and a section over a thousand miles in diameter had gone dark. He called to his superior.

“Will, I’ve got something curious here.” A slender, middle-aged man with long gray hair walked over to the console.

“What is it, Mel?”

“Look at this. You asked us to report anything out of the ordinary. Well, occasionally one sat will malfunction, but it looks as if at least a dozen have stopped reporting all at once. I haven’t plotted out the details yet, but there’s an entire section of the Belt where nothing’s happening.”

“When did it start?”

“Just a moment ago. So whatever occurred out there happened about...”-he thought for a second-”about eleven minutes ago.”

“Thanks, Mel. This could be the surprise we’ve been waiting for. I’ll report this immediately.” Will went over to the master communicator in the tower and sent a top priority message to Space Command’s headquarters on Mars, describing the situation. Space Command headquarters forwarded the information to its centers on Earth and the Moon, as well as to Oritz Konig, SE’s Head of Security in Mars Base.

Konig’s report to Richard Starlight included these words: “It looks probable that the pirates have taken some sort of action in the Belt. There are no population centers of any size within 10,000 miles of the place, and no known solitary miners. It’s a completely dead spot, and sats are spaced very thinly there. Yet fourteen sats in a sphere at least a thousand miles in diameter were put out within a ten-minute period. No natural phenomenon can explain that. Space Command has the closest ship, but it won’t get to the site for a little more than 22 hours. The nearest backup ship is more than three hours after that. SE doesn’t have a ship of any kind at all within four days of the site, so we’ll have to depend on Space Command for the first reports.”

“Wake up! Everybody wake up!” Starman Joe Taylor was shouting.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Voices came from several men, jerked awake by Joe’s outburst.

“Food! There’s food here!” he burst out. “And water! Someone brought us food and water! Lots of it!”

Within seconds everyone was up and crowding around Joe. Now that he had roused his companions, he was bent over a half dozen large boxes, one of which was partially open. He reached in and took out a container filled with fruit. He handed it to one of George St. George’s men, reached into the box again, and withdrew a vessel with water in it. It had a spigot on it as if it were made for traveling. The men began passing it around, drinking deeply. Joe dug in again and brought out another box. He opened it and held it up so that others could see. It contained several layers of items like large crackers.

“Where did it come from, Joe?” Zip asked.

“I don’t know, Zip! I woke up before anyone else and noticed these crates. I jumped up, looked around but didn’t see anybody. I opened the first one and saw the fruit. That’s the whole story.”

“You don’t know it’s safe! You took a chance, Joe!”

“What kind of chance, David? Where were we going to find water, much less food? We were done for without this.”

“Not too much of a chance, I think, Zip,” whispered Mark to the red-haired Starman. Zip turned his head and looked at Mark curiously. “The food’s okay. Let the men distribute it and I’ll tell you what I know.”

“Okay,” Zip nodded. He turned to George. “Let the men take the crates apart and see what we’ve got here. We’ll eat and then we’ll make plans.” George took over operations while the three Starmen stepped aside.