James Axler – Parallax Red Parallax Red

Construction on the station began in early 1977, shortly after the photographic discoveries of the Viking Mars probe. Originally the project was a covert joint undertaking between America and Russia, but the commanding organizational body had been something called Overproject Majestic.

Some years previously, a small secret base had been established on the Moon in the Manitius Crater region. This site was chosen because of its proximity to artifacts that some scientists speculated were the shattered remains of an incredibly ancient city, once protected by massive geodesic domes.

The early shuttlecraft program ferried construction materials to a point in the Moon’s orbit, where they were retrieved by the engineers living there via short-range unmanned vessels. From there, they were conveyed to Lagrange Region 2, on the dark side of the Moon.

Parallax Red had a twofold purposeto establish a permanent Terran military presence in space and to use the base as a jumping-off point for missions to Mars.

However, the construction project was mind-staggeringly costly and excruciatingly slow.

The loss in life was exceptionally high, as well, due to accidents and the cumulative debilitating effects of zero gravity.

“From what I read in the few journals still extant,” Sindri said, “conditions in the first decade of the project were beastly, technical problems nearly insurmountable and the schedule was woefully behind, on the order of three years.”

“Something obviously turned it around,” Brigid commented.

Sindri nodded, steering the cart around a curve in the passageway wall. “That something was the advent and installation of a gadget colloquially known as a gateway. One was installed in Manitius base in 1990, and another a few months later on the station itself.”

Grant and Kane exchanged dour glances. What Sindri said fit with what they knew of the Project Cerberus timeline.

“After that,” Sindri declared, “construction on Parallax Red resumed, and the major portions of it were completed in a little less than a year. Once that was accomplished, the focus turned to Mars.

“In the intervening years however, the situation had changed. Other unique features had been discovered on the planet. Constructs that were obviously unnatural and that resembled a pyramid city showed up in the photos…the products of design and all that implied.

“The situational change was political. By the mid-1980s, the Soviets had withdrawn their support from the Parallax Red project and made their own partisan plans to investigate the so-called Monuments of Mars.”

Sindri laughed shortly and went on. “In 1988, Russia launched two probes supposedly to investigate the Martian moon Phobos. Both were lost without revealing anything.”

Kane leaned forward. “Lost? How were they lost?”

Sindri turned the wheel and guided the cart up a ramp slanted at a forty-five-degree angle. “More than likely, they were destroyed.”

“By who or what?” asked Grant.

The ramp ended in a white, blister-shaped pocket, about the size of the mat-trans control room. Sindri applied the brakes, and the cart squeaked to a halt. “Disembark if you’ve a mind to, but you will find the quality of air and gravity severely lacking.”

All of them saturated their lungs with oxygen before pushing aside the plastic sheets and climbing out of the cart. As Sindri warned them, the gravity was very low, probably a fraction of a G above zero. The air was exceptionally thin and cold.

The chamber was dominated by a ten-foot-high platform surrounding an elongated object shaped in some ways like a cannon, but one that appeared composed of an alchemical fusion of glass, ceramic and metal.

A ladder and a lift led up to the railed platform. Underneath they saw ribbons of circuitry and control consoles. Nestled directly beneath the cannon, enclosed by transparent armaglass partitions, was a humped row of dynamos.

Voice tight so as not to allow more air than necessary to escape his lungs, Grant said, “It’s a weapon. A blaster.”

Sindri nodded. “I believe it was deployed to destroy the Russian space probes.”

“What is it?” Kane asked. “An MD gun?”

Sindri swung his head toward him, regarding him keenly. “No, Mr. Kane, it is not, though I am interested in learning how you know about it.”

He pointed to the long barrel of the cannon. “It is a GRASER, a gamma-ray-powered laser projector. Gamma-ray photons are millions of times more powerful than infrared photons produced even by ruby lasers. This is a true death ray, horrifyingly powerful, far worse than a molecular destabilizer. A few billion megawatts of GRASER power might conceivably blow up the Sun, force it to go nova.”

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