Christopher Wood - James Bond and Moonraker

Bond looked up to the top of the globe. What he saw made him draw in his breath sharply. The scene of carnage that prevailed in the Nerve Gas Launch Assembly room was not duplicated in the turret that housed the laser gun. There he could see figures moving and the long barrel of the gun being brought to bear on the U.S. space shuttle, which was still keeping pace with the station’s drift through space. Would the pilot of the shuttle be aware of what had happened to the Russian satellite? Almost certainly the position of the satellite would have been plotted and its sudden disappearance commented upon. No doubt this was the reason why the Americans had come straight in to the attack. They had treated the disappearance of the Russian craft as evidence of a hostile presence in space and not risked pausing to make a challenge.

Bond could almost hear the seconds ticking away. At any moment the laser gun turret might open fire and obliterate the shuttle. He must do something. But to reach the turret would be a labour of Hercules. The largest contingents of Drax’s men would be gathered near the dormitories, which were directly below the turret. With the space station lopsided and in a state of zero-gravity he would have to fight his way, weightless, through a confused warren of passages dominated by those of Drax’s men who were still in a condition to give battle. For support he could rely only on Jaws and Holly — if they were alive and if he could join up with them. He peered out of the window and another possibility entered his mind. All his plans were based on the premise that he should attack the turret from inside the station. But if he were to approach it via space...

Bond prized open the door and clawed his way back down the corridor. He recalled passing an airlock chamber. Through the transparent viewing panel he had glimpsed that it contained two space suits. If they were equipped with propulsion units he might be able to let himself out of the airlock and manoeuvre his way to the turret. He pulled himself along the corridor again, knowing that he was battling against time. Ahead, three Draxites moved clumsily across an intersection. They looked towards him but took no action. They were concentrating on the threat from outside. Bond found the airlock chamber and pulled down the lever. The inner door swung open and he seized one of the space suits and started to pull it on. It was a cumbersome thing to wield at the best of times but in a weightless situation and with time running out, the effort frayed nerves and fingers. Eventually it was on and he secured the helmet and turned on the oxygen supply. Now he could breathe in space; but could he move through it? Bond contracted his gauntleted hands and felt his power supply convert to forward thrust. In principle this should propel him through space like a human jet aeroplane. In principle. Bond had never tried it in practice. Already he was sweating, and not only because of the space suit. He twisted uncomfortably and looked up towards the laser turret. The gun was traversing. He turned and looked for the shuttle. There was no sign of it. For a moment his heart stopped. Then he realized what must have happened. Either by accident or design, the shuttle had dropped back to a position behind one of the satellites that projected from the main globe. The laser gunner dared not fire for fear that he would destroy his own space station.

Feeling no other sensation beyond numbing fear, Bond closed the inner door behind him and was now entombed in the claustrophobic cubby hole that was the vacuum chamber. No Edgar Allan Poe story he had read as a child had adequately conveyed the sense of mouth-drying terror that now engulfed him. Instant death would almost have seemed a better choice than the one he was making. He forced movement into his paralysed right hand and felt the lever that secured the outer door begin to descend. With a speed that took him by surprise, it slid down and he toppled into space. A quick start of alarm was followed by surprise. There was no sensation of falling, of wind battering against the body, no slipstream to be drawn into. All that was happening was that the space station was drifting away like a ship silently gliding away from a man who has , fallen overboard. Bond again had the sensation that he was in a dream; that no matter what he did, no matter how far he opened his mouth to scream, nothing was going to happen. But in a dream there was always that faint link with reality. Something at the back of your mind told you that this was a dream, that you were going to wake up. But here that link was missing. There was no thread to bind him to the globular insect drifting away like the dried-out husk of a great spider.

Bond came to his senses as panic engulfed him. He must use his propulsion unit! If he did nothing he would be left in an orbit of his own. Bond squeezed his hands and immediately felt a pressure behind him as if someone had given him a shove in the small of the back. The distance to the space station began to close. Relief was quickly counterbalanced by a new fear as a laser ray passed dangerously close. An American space marine had fired at him, thinking that he was a Draxite. Bond pulled out his laser torch and accelerated until he was against the outside wall of the corridor from which he had emerged. He turned anxiously and saw that his attacker was engaging a globular space cart that had appeared from behind one of the satellites. As battle was joined, Bond located the gun turret and started to move along the corridor towards the central globe. To take a short cut was to become involved in the main area of the space battle, and he did not want to risk a confrontation with an American space marine. Neither did he want the laser gunner to see him approaching. There was also a powerful fear of losing tactile contact with the space station. Bond had not forgotten his first terrifying impression of what it must be like to be marooned in space. He hovered close to the corridor and pressed on towards the central globe.

Suddenly he found that he was drifting away into space. He changed direction by pressing with his left hand, but the tubular arm of the corridor seemed to move even farther away. Bond fought mounting panic. What was happening? Had something gone wrong with his power control unit? Then realization dawned on him. Somebody had switched on the rotation thrusters. The space station was starting to revolve. The revelation electrocuted Bond as if he had touched a high tension cable. He turned his head and saw a second satellite corridor swinging towards him like a mace. He hesitated, then powered himself away from its path. It swept beneath him and he glimpsed men running down a corridor.

Now he was almost at the central globe, and he accelerated forward and tried to find something to cling to. The moving surface brushed him aside and he spun backwards to collide with the curved surface of a corridor arm as it built up speed. The force of impact glued him to its side and he was borne forward as if flattened against the spoke of a revolving wheel. Stretching out an arm, he found a perforated metal seam that followed the line of the corridor, and clung to it. Thank God he was near the centre of the station. Facing him across the void, he saw an American space marine trying to cling to a corridor arm from a position nearer to a satellite. Helpless against the build-up of centrifugal force, the unhappy man started to slide down towards the satellite and was then tossed into space like a screw of paper dropped on the edge of a spinning disc. Bond watched the man disappear into space and felt sick. Sick with pain, pity and — above all — fear.

18

A DREAM DIES SCREAMING

Bond blinked against the sweat that was soaking down through his eyebrows and twisted his head to look up at the laser turret just visible above the curve of the globe. The U.S. shuttle was now at its mercy. Bond looked along the metal seam he was clinging to and saw that it joined the central globe. Another protruding lip rose towards the turret.