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A SAGA OF DESTRUCTION IN THE 21ST CENTURY Space City was on full security alert. During the last week an unknown agent had succeeded in sabotaging nearly all of the Air-Sea Tracking Stations that ringed the Pacific island base of the World Space Patrol. One by one the stations had been put out of action with some form of acid - components completely destroyed. Five days and five tracking stations had fallen; five days in which Chief Engineer Jock Campbell and his men had been on constant repair duties. Two stations were back in action now but Commander Wilbur Zero feared attack from unknown forces - and with three tracking stations down it seemed inevitable. Orders had been given to Security Chief Sergeant Patrick Mahoney to double the guard at the repaired stations - other guards kept a constant watch on the coastline. The repair work continued. In Space City itself only a token guard remained. It was night-time now and from out of the shadows came a stealthy figure - walking swiftly for the entrance to the underground car park next to the great revolving Control Tower. 'Excuse me, sir,' called a nearby voice; a security guard came into view. 'Can I see your pass, please' The figure came into the guard's torchlight. He wore the brown uniform of a lieutenant, but it was the man's heavy features and bulging, almost fish-like eyes that caught the guard's attention. 'Can I see your pass, Lieutenant?' asked the guard a second time. 'Certainly,' responded the disguised X20 pulling a torch-like device from his pocket and shining an intense white beam into the guard's eyes. 'What are you -', the guard gasped, and then became rigid, dropping the coma-ray gun he had begun to draw. 'You have not seen me,' said X20 to the hypnotized guard. 'You will not see me leave and you will not sound the alarm. Do you understand?' 'Yes,' replied the guard. 'Resume your patrol and act naturally.' Titan's hypnobeam had served the Mysterons well. X20 now ignored the security guard and walked into the carpark. 'The Earthmen are fools', thought the Mysteronised X20. 'One of their supposedly impregnable bases and with the use of the hypnobeam I have remained undetected for five days now.' The attacks on the Air-Sea Tracking Stations had succeeded in putting the majority of the security forces where X20 wanted them - out of his way. He found an equipment elevator and entered its cage. At the touch of a button it began to descend. 'They expect an attack,' thought X20, 'and they will get one after I have succeeded in the final stage of my assignment.' The elevator reached its lowest level and the cage door slid open to reveal the Nuclear Generators. The matter disruptor had been ideal for putting the tracking stations silently out of action but the final blow would be dealt a little more explosively. Jock Campbell had to finish the routine maintenance checks on the generators and then oversee the repair work on the third tracking station. 'Och, there's no time to eat my haggis while this alert is on. It's one job after-' The wiry Scot's thoughts were cut short by a hefty blow to the head from behind. He fell heavily to the floor - he would be unconscious for hours. X20 stepped over the engineer's prostrate form to stand before the Generators that powered all of Space City - their small size denying their giga-watt output. Swiftly and methodically the surface agent placed Coralamic explosive on every generator and then repeated the process on the auxiliaries. X20 now found his way back to the elevator- he must rejoin Titan's forces. Soon the generators would be so much scrap metal and Space City would be without power. Leaving the car park he ran past the hypnotized guard and headed away from the Control Tower. 'Halt-or l fire!' X20 looked around to see another security guard heading towards him on a jetmohile coma-gun in hand. 'You can't stop me Earthman,' said X20, raising the matter disruptor. The guard fired his gun and a crackling coma ray enveloped the saboteur - but he did not fall. 'That could knock out an elephant,' gasped the guard in shock. 'But not a Mysteron,' added X20 aiming the disruptor. The guard had tried to shout 'Emergency Red,' into his jetmobile radio before the purple ray of the disruptor hit him and he dissolved into thin air. X20 grabbed the discarded jetmobile and sped away down the highway towards the coast cursing the guard. Within minutes he had reached the western security gate - the guards there saw a lieutenant rushing towards them. One of them ran to meet him and received a lethal dose of the jetmobile's coma-ray cannon for his trouble. Next moment the disguised X20 was through. In a matter of seconds the base was on full red alert and all the coastal guards were on the lookout for a 'lieutenant' on a jetmobile heading their way. X20 threw caution to the winds now and jetted out over the sea, the life-giving sea; it still called to him even in his Mysteronised form. A second before he could dive to safety a laser bolt punched a hole in his chest and he fell from the jetmobile into the waves below. 'Got him!' yelled a young security guard on the coastal road and then he took out his belt radio to contact his chief, Mahoney. Minutes later a combination of the Red Alert klaxon and the telephone bleeping woke Commander Zero from a troubled sleep in the Control Room. He quickly clambered from his makeshift camp bed which he had been using since the security alert began so that his section-heads could keep him updated on developments any time of the day or night without waking his wife, Eleanor. 'What the blazes is happening down there, Mahoney?' bawled Zero into the receiver, trying to compete with the klaxon. 'I didn't wish to wake you until I was absolutely sure, sir,' came the voice of his Irish security chief. 'It started when I received an emergency call from one of my men in the Tower area - but then the radio went dead. Minutes later someone burst through West Point and killed one of my guards.' 'What?' gasped Zero. 'Have you caught him yet, Pat?' Mahoney explained what had happened next. 'My lad says he saw him fall into the sea - pretty sure he was dead sir.' 'But what in blazes was he doing near the Tower?' mused Zero. I want a full search-' 'Wait a minute, sir,' cut in Mahoney. 'I've just received a call from the engineers working on the third tracker. Chief Campbell hasn't returned from checking the generators.' 'The generators!' howled Zero, suddenly comprehending what the saboteur was up to. 'For God's sake man, organize a full search of the Generator Room -alert bomb disposal and fire-fighting teams. If he's done anything to those generators while your guards have been watching the coast...' The Commander's words trailed off. Below the sea, off the western coast of Space City Island the mortally wounded X20 floundered in pain. His wig had floated from his head and the currents were slowly washing away his pink face make-up to reveal the green skin beneath.The Mysteronised surface agent had no fear of death - he knew his body's power of retrometabolism meant that he was virtually indestructible and that his wound would soon heal. Suddenly X20's body erupted in a blaze of energy and vanished; a mile further out to sea the craft which Space City's detectors had taken for an oversized shark also ceased to exist. X20 had served the Mysterons well - even his destruction had purpose: There would now be no trace left of the matter disruptor, a device the Mysterons had decided was too dangerous to exist in case one day it fell into the hands of Spectrum and was used against them. Page 1 Page 3 Back to Stories Page Back to Unity City Main Page |