Legacy Read Free Page A

all—”
    “Look—our ships,” Gideon said. He pointed skyward and at the same time lowered a middle visor in his helmet that magnified the image of the three ships far above them.
    Lydia turned in her overlarge suit and saw the bright specks of Vortex, Guidon, and the much larger Ranger as they hurtled on.
    “Damn, they’re still running in formation. Didn’t the base contact them?” He turned an accusing eye on the young scientist.
    “Everything is down, radar, sonar, communications, everything. I told you things were getting weird!”
    “I should have known,” Gideon said. “They’re not down, they’re being jammed, and I should have realized that.” His eyes never left the three ships flying in a wedge formation toward the base. Their altitude wasn’t even staggered. They were still about a hundred miles high and sailing wing abreast, the two smaller pocket battleships slightly behind their flagship, Ranger .
    “Maybe—”
    That was as far as she got as Gideon grabbed her and pushed her to the lunar dust. As he did so, the pocket battleship on the left side of the formation erupted silently into flame and floating debris. The eeriness of the enemy strike was so sudden and quiet it was surreal. Gideon saw another salvo strike what remained of the smaller pocket battleship Vortex, and her sizzling hulk vanished in a white hot explosion that sent chunks of lightweight metal flying in a torrent of faster-than-sound missiles of aluminum and plastic. The debris struck the lunar surface far below, sending up enormous geysers of dust and rock. The two remaining battleships were caught unawares and reacted far too slowly after taking hits from the explosion. Ranger started her turn, her bow thrusters firing at full throttle as she started to slow, and then Guidon did the same a moment later. Both were attempting to turn and face the sudden and unseen threat. The major shook his head, knowing they would be too late.
    “They’ll never make it,” Gideon said softly. He lifted Lydia to her feet and pushed her toward the complex of huts hidden behind the wall of the crater.
    The three enemy ships that Gideon had seen before reappeared. Without viewing them up close he knew the silverish saucers would be old and scarred from many engagements on and around Ophillias and their home world. He watched as their exotic weapons opened fire. The first six shots were evenly dispersed among Guidon and Ranger as they turned their bows around to bring their main batteries to bear. The large turrets swiveled to line up on the three enemy saucers.
    Gideon watched in horror and then flinched as the first laser beams struck the larger of the two ships. Pieces of the ship’s pressure hull and of the main deck composed of spiderweb girders exploded outward. Noiseless and horribly bright, Ranger returned fire with her twenty-inch twin forward cannon, quickly followed by a salvo from their number-two forward mount. A bright flash of greenish light exited the crystal-tipped barrels, followed by an expanding gas slug of nitrogen that was used for cooling the large bore and diamond tip at the end of the great cannon. The nitrogen froze immediately as it exited the barrels, creating a blanket of fog that from a distance resembled smoke. The twin laser shots from each mount were infused with particles made up of two thousand ball bearing–sized steel balls that passed through a hole in the crystal refractor. This volley was soon joined by twin shots of infused light from the smaller fourteen-inch cannon of Guidon . Major Gideon saw the first enemy saucer vanish in a gut-wrenching, metal-shredding wreck as the laser slugs punched large holes in it. The three-hundred-foot-diameter saucer started to lose its orbit, sliding toward the lunar surface in a silent death plunge.
    The second saucer in the enemy line broke from the remaining twin formation. It made a run directly at the lunar surface and the small base inside the crater. The major