Contest 2005
The Tales of Future Past Short Story Contest!
Second Prize
The Moon Magnet
By
Drew Kupsky
“Sir, I think we’ve found the anomaly.” The little man shouted as he ran, waving a fistful of papers over his head.
Admiral Marshall rose to his full height and turned towards him. His bulk seemed to fill half of the situation room. “Well, out with it, Son. I haven’t got all day,” he barked, shaking his thick white moustache with each word. “There’s a crisis going on, you know. Machines all over the world are going berserk, and we have to find out why.”
The little cadet squirmed in his shiny new Sky Patrol boots. “Yes, Admiral, I know. All the technological malfunctions all over the world are being caused by a huge magnetic field of some kind. Our sensors have traced the source of the field back to the Crater Tycho.”
“Tycho, you say? Interesting. Fortunately I know the place well. Took the wife there on vacation once. Good fishing, but the food is terrible. Somewhere in Canada, if I'm not mistaken. I always knew we shouldn’t trust them…”
“Umm, Admiral,” Marshall’s aide stepped forward, “I think Cadet Hodges here is referring to the Crater Tycho in the southern highlands of the Moon. Not the one in, um, Canada, sir.”
“That’s right, Lieutenant. Our sensors indicate that the anomaly is coming from a giant electromagnet in Tycho” Cadet Hodges said. “The Tycho on the Moon, that is,” he added quickly.
The Admiral automatically shifted his body a little to the left, making sure the gold braid on his new uniform caught the light properly. “So it’s not the Canadians after all.” He tilted his head to one side and raised an eyebrow for dramatic effect. “By Jove, it all makes sense now.” He leaned in and dropped his voice to a conspiratorial-sounding stage whisper. “It is a little known fact, gentlemen, that the Crater Tycho contains a mysterious artifact left there by a strange alien race. I studied the phenomenon back in my Academy days, but I'm afraid the details are a bit sketchy for me now. Something about talking computers and monkeys beating each other, as I recall.”
Lieutenant Majors silently chewed on his lip for a moment before answering. “Your intellect never ceases to amaze me, Admiral. However, I believe you’re thinking of an old vid-screen story from the 20th Century.” He turned to Hodges. “Cadet, is there any evidence of what this anomaly is, or what is causing it?”
The Cadet flipped through the stack of papers, arriving at a large photograph. “Yes, sir. Our telecameras indicate a large electromagnetic device, manned by a crew of unidentified organisms. The photos are a little distorted so we can’t clearly identify the life forms, but the device appears to be Robinian technology.”
“Ugh, Robinians.” Admiral Marshall shuddered, his moustache trembling like a small electrocuted animal. “I hate those creepy little tadpoles. They’re all slimy, with those weird googly eyes. So why do they want a giant magnet on the Moon, anyway?”
“It could be anything”, Majors said, as he took the photo from the cadet’s hand to get a closer look. “They’re brilliant inventors, but they’re remarkably short on common sense. The Robinians have built bases on the Moon before, but always near the southern pole. Apparently, they think of the southern hemisphere as the bottom, so they think whatever they build there will be hidden ‘under’ the Moon where we can’t see it.”
“Clever little buggers,” muttered the Admiral. Cadet Hodges and Lieutenant Majors exchanged glances. “But what are the little devils up to this time?”
“From the looks of the device,” Hodges said, “it appears to be an oversized version of a Magnetotron, a standard Robinian weapon. If that’s the case, it’s aimed straight at the Earth and there’s no telling what will happen when the full force of that magnetic field is released.”
Lieutenant Majors took the papers from the boy’s hand and nodded briskly. “Thank you, Cadet. Now the Admiral wants you keep a close eye on the telecameras, and let us know immediately if anything new develops. Keep up the good work!” Cadet Hodges saluted the officers and marched back to his workstation with a swell of pride in his chest.
“This is a dark hour for our planet, my friend,” Admiral Marshall said gravely. The Admiral loved a good crisis; they were just so dramatic. “We have triumphed over adversity before, and even defeated these accursed Tadpoles time and again. But now we are in desperate straits, and such times call for drastic action.
“What are your orders, sir?” Lieutenant Majors asked, inwardly bracing for what came next.
After a properly dramatic pause, the Admiral replied, “Deploy three squadrons of Skyfighters immediately. Have them make all speed for the Crater Taco…”
“Tycho, sir. Not Taco.”
“Whatever it is, tell them to go there on the double and zap anything that moves. Zap the things that don’t move too, just in case. I want that magneto-thingy reduced to atoms, and I want every one of those Tadpole people blasted into purple goo. You got that, Lieutenant?”
“Yes sir, but there’s one problem. I called Skyfighter Command an hour ago to put them on full alert, and I was told that their craft can’t fly under these conditions. The magnetic interference is affecting their instruments so severely they can’t get out of the hangar, much less to the Moon.”
“What about Starkiller rockets?”
“I'm afraid not, Admiral. If one was sent into that magnetic field its guidance system might re-polarize and send it back at us.”
“Curses. So it’s even worse than I thought!” said the Admiral as he pounded his fist on a nearby countertop. He hadn’t had this much fun in ages. “Then there’s only one thing left to do. All our hopes, our very lives rest in the hands of just one man. Without his courage and daring, I fear all is lost. Lieutenant Majors,” he paused for dramatic effect, “get me Ace Bennigan!”
Lieutenant Majors sighed. “Bennigan is still fighting the Neptunian lizard people. Even if we could reach him, it would be weeks before he could get here.”
This was disappointing, but Admiral Oliver Hazard Marshall was not discouraged so easily. “Well, then get me… the Star Rangers!”
“I tried them too, Admiral. They’re still dealing with the space pirates on Jupiter and won’t be back for at least two more weeks.”
“Hmm. What about Mister Stupendous?”
“Don’t you remember, Admiral? Stupendous died last month while testing his new solar jetpack prototype.
“Really? That’s too bad. Remind me to send some flowers to the Widow Stupendous later.”
“You already did, sir. She was moved by your words of condolence I wrote.”
“Oh, good. Anyway, is the Comet Patrol around?”
“Yes, they are, but the navigation systems guiding their spacecraft are even older than the Skyfighters, and twice as useless in this situation.”
“Well, this is just frustrating. What about the Supersonic Squad?”
“They’re racing in the Tour de Ganymede all month.”
“Captain Danger?”
“His parole hearing isn’t till next June.”
“The Poseidon Force?”
“Submarines can’t fly, sir.”
“Dang.”
Just then, Cadet Hodges came running over to them. “Admiral, we’ve spotted something on the telecams. A passing Mercurian saucer has been caught in the Magnetotron’s field and it can’t seem to get out.”
Majors raced over to the screen, with the Admiral lumbering behind him. The cadet was right. A red Mercurian battle saucer was straining against the giant magnet’s pull, but it couldn’t break free. “Hodges, how far is that saucer from the Robinians?”
“About 75 miles and closing fast, Lieutenant. The Robinians seem to be pulling it in with the Magnetotron.”
“So that’s their game,” the Admiral exclaimed. “They’re fishing for spacecraft!”
Majors gasped aloud. After nine years of working in the Sky Patrol command center, he was forced to say something he’d never expected to. “You’re right, Admiral.”
The rest of the room gasped aloud. Majors swallowed hard and continued. “The Magnetotron isn’t meant to sabotage our machines; it’s just a big magnetic net for catching ships.” He let out a little laugh. “I wonder if they realize which fish they’ve bagged, though.”
The others looked at him strangely. Then Hodges caught on. “Mercurians don’t like nets, do they Lieutenant?”
“No, Hodges. They really, really hate them. In fact, there is only thing they hate more than being captured, and that’s Robinians. I can only imagine what being caught by Robinians will do to those famous hot tempers of theirs. I wonder how much longer before the Magnetotron pulls them into the saucer’s firing range?”
Thirty seconds later, the battle saucer opened fire. Ten seconds after that, the Magnetotron was just a smoldering black stain on the crater floor. The crisis was over.
“Good work, men! We’ve done it again, eh Majors?”
“Not really, Admiral. But congratulations to you all the same.”
“Thank you, my boy, thank you. So, did I hear you say Mrs. Stupendous is single now?”
