"(novel) (ebook) - Perry Rhodan 0070 - (62) The Last Days of Atlantis" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Rhodan)

The Paito disappeared beyond the planet's rim. With the giant flagship we ploughed through a barely noticeable formation of enemy spaceships, followed by a rising howl of violently compressed air masses as we made our entry dive, even though we were keeping to the highest strata of the atmosphere. From the computer room came the announcement that our fairly negligible speed was nevertheless double the theoretical top velocity permissible in this time-plane.
The effects related to this development were momentarily of no concern to me. In spite of the thick ear-protectors I was wearing, my auditory senses were racked with pain. The spherical hull of the Tosoma resounded like a giant bell. Then on top of it the automatic weapons opened their rapid intermittent fire. By comparing our intrinsic velocity with target distances, the master positronic system was able to control the firing intervals so that a swiftly erected learning curve of empirical data resulted in a precise coalescing of range-effective areas, making an even blanket coverage.
We could not observe entirely what was going on down below. We had our hands full trying to hold the ship in its attack orbit because with our engines at full power we were exceeding the free fall limits and the resulting centrifugal force was naturally trying to hurl us on a straight line out into space.
Tarth was shopping for spare energy to throw into the forward collision shielding, even diverting the idle power from the gun turrets that were on the lee side of the firing. Our bow side entry screens were flaming white hot from atmospheric friction in spite of our passage through the thinnest upper strata.
We circled the planet in just 51/2 minutes. The course-holding manoeuvres were dangerous. Our overstrained equipment couldn't take the load for very long.
When we reached our starting point after the first orbital run, veering 10░ north in the process, I noted on the groundward viewscreens that there was nothing but incandescent land areas and gigantic atomic mushroom clouds to be seen-the latter no doubt having been generated by fissionable or fissionable material. Probably the atomic blasts might even represent explosions of the long, cylindrical enemy ships as they were caught in our fire.
After the 2nd tactical target run, the Tosoma peeled off and away. Maj Eseka had launched a total of 10 Arkon bombs, all of which had struck their designated target areas and ignited.
Finally the terrible thunder of the impulse and disintegrator weapons ceased abruptly. Which only enabled us to distinguish the almost equal raging and roaring of the engines and the power reactors. The battleship's mighty shell still resonated noisily with them. We still could not risk taking off our noise mufflers.
"Where is the Paito?" I shouted excitedly into the head mike of my helmet.
Capt. Masal responded from the tracking centre: "Just coming up over the northern pole, Your Eminence. Still maintaining remote fire, accelerating, now using thermocannons vertically on red sector, needlepoint pattern. Apparently no enemy units visible. Now the firing has stopped-only quanta output from propulsion detectable. According to emission readings, no damages apparent. Over and out!"
I breathed a sigh of relief and turned to look at Tarth. My flagship commander smiled back at me. I heard his deep voice in my earphones:
"They won't try stealing off harmless settlers again and they'll lay off shooting up our patrol ships! By Arkon!-who are we dealing with anyway? Are they phantoms, robots or what? How is it they make use of a natural phenomenon for their dirty work? Even if you won't permit it, I'm going to make a forced flight in the Tosoma to Arkon and get hold of an attack fleet. I'll do it one way or another!"
"If it were not for the Methans, yes," I answered wearily, inwardly assailed by self-reproach. Had I proceeded justly? Who were the unknown aliens?
The throat of the outlet funnel loomed before us. We plunged into its depths at light-speed but this time to our great astonishment the previously observed effects did not occur. I was merely expecting that our forward motion would be restricted by invisible forces but this time it seemed that we were pushing through a soft, yielding mass.
The announcement was not long in coming from the power and engine control centre. "Speed dropping at 75 mps in spite of full thrust, rate constant. Question: should we inject more nuclear fuel?"
I ordered it immediately, knowing full well the overload I was putting on the equipment. Behind us hurtled the battle cruiser Paito but Inkar had not yet hailed us.
Eternities seemed to pass before we were finally released from the funnel. Just as I was about to turn again to Tarth with a sigh of relief a report arrived from the tracking room:
"Discharge field has disappeared. No further energy variations detectable."
This calmly delivered news made me turn pale. Tarth's eyes were suddenly like saucers. Kosol's face gleamed white from the intercom screen. I saw him look hastily at his watch.
"By our own time frame we were over there just 65 minutes," he said in a troubled tone.
By our time-frame!" The thought almost exploded in my brain.
How could the field have vanished again? We knew that it would have to have remained stable for at least 3 hours. Had we experienced one of those feared lapse-rate changes-a reference-oriented time shift? By others' reference points did our 65 minutes equal 65 days, or even as many weeks?
I clambered slowly out of my high-backed chair and lifted the microphone with a trembling hand. "Masal, put in a call to Atlantis, quickly! Call Feltif. I have to know what may have..."
I didn't have to say any more. The emergency call came in under Fleet Format KRA-Q-Z. It was an automatic taped message on open channel and uncoded:
"Capt. Feltif to Squadron Chief. We are lost. 5 gun positions have been destroyed and on top of it we're faced with a very heavy overlap front. Half the colonists have been drawn into it. We are retreating with the natives into the forest wilderness and mountains. Approximately 100 enemy ships are maintaining a running attack. The axial stability of the planet is wavering. It appears that the time front has brought strong gravitational fields with it, which are changing the inclination of Larsaf 3's axis to the ecliptic. This is Capt. Feltif. Where are you? I've been calling for 9 days. Arkon does not answer. End of message. Will repeat in 3 minutes, will repeat in 3 minutes."
Everybody heard the distress call. I stood there as though liquid air had been poured over me. Tarth's face was like a stone statue.
"Attack immediately, come what may," I heard myself saying.





7/ ATLANTIS-DYING

We gambled on a short transition jump but as we emerged out of hyperspace we found ourselves in the centre of a mass formation of about 150 heavy-class enemy fighter ships. None of them matched the size of the Tosoma and only 2 were identified as being capable of facing up to the heavy cruiser Paito. Nevertheless, from the first moment of battle our resistance seemed doomed to failure. We never recovered. After the first penetrating hits the defence screens of the Paito failed. It was structurally characteristic of heavy cruiser types that although they were fast and heavily armed the space demands of equipment installations were satisfied at the cost of defensive screening. The prescribed structural weight, by Arkon standards, could not be exceeded, and if the spherical compartments were stuffed chock-full with every possible type of equipment and machinery there was simply nothing more that would go into the ship.
The proud Paito under Capt. Inkar was caught in a hail of fire from approximately 60 enemy ships and was detonated. The resultant energy release was equivalent to that of a miniature sun. I knew that the engine and reactor cores had gone into a chain reaction. About 50 billion tons of TNT was released, in effect.
The catastrophe occurred close to the lunar orbit. As hot as the sun, the gaseous sphere spread out so quickly that it even grazed the upper air strata of the 3rd planet.
I hovered over the night hemisphere of our colonial world. The almost ultra-violet energy ball arched upward in all its splendour and might above the dark planetary horizon and turned the night into glaring day.
Even at our distance our protective screens raged with titanic forces to resist the impact. I was certain that Inkar's fiery demise had taken at least 70 enemy ships to their doom. The aliens were not yet aware of the effects of detonating a large Arkonide fighting ship.
But they learned quickly!
The Tosoma was still lying under a crossfire from about 80 enemy ships but suddenly the fire was lifted. The others had had a bitter lesson. They retreated frantically and did not reopen their effective fire until they were at a distance of almost 2 million miles.
They had practiced their gunnery well, these mysterious ones from another time plane. My evasive manoeuvres were rash and wild. I had overridden the automatic controls in favour of manual piloting so as to move the heavy ship out of the intercepting energy beams.
It was futile! Only 5 minutes after our first enemy contact, 3 thermal shots had broken through our overloaded defence screens. A fire had broken out in power room 4. Six of our available 15 propulsion units went out. From there on the Tosoma's hull plates bore the brunt of everything that was being thrown at us.
Now we were close to the end. Our movements had become sluggish and easier to calculate. We had dropped our excessive speed because even Arkonides cannot shoot perfectly if their ship is travelling near the speed of light.
The enemy had retained their rate of motion. We no longer held any special advantage over them. Per the status report the nuclear hurricane of fire from the Tosoma's gun turrets had annihilated 34 of the alien ships. But there were still enough of them left to polish us off.
By this time the heavily battered Tosoma was ablaze in 4 major sections and was falling toward the surface of the planet. Just prior to our short transition jump I had issued an order for all hands to exchange their Arkonide combat uniforms for regular spacesuits. With these very excellent apparatuses one was capable of flight and a light repulsion field for defence purposes could also be generated.
The individual protection screens were now urgently needed. The high-pitched hissing sound of the flagship's automatic fire-fighting equipment had already ceased because of breakdown. As a result, the countless safety hatches had long since closed. The individual compartments-and there were hundreds of them-had all been hermetically sealed.
The only method of combating the fire now was to withdraw the synthetic atmosphere from the interior. Without oxygen there could be no process of molecular combustion. I had no sooner gotten such a program underway than the air-pumping system broke down. Of course the positronicon sounded an alarm but that didn't serve much purpose anymore.
The fire continued unabated in the engine and power rooms. If the highly volatile fuel catalyst were to be ignited, the enemy would experience an even greater explosion. For the time being, however, the special tanks held up, since they could withstand temperatures up to 50,000░.
About 60% of the videophone connections were knocked out, as well, so all I had left was the radio intercom system.