Several BMK officers fell to their deaths trying to climb down the sheer rock face. Their bodies were routinely disintegrated after being stripped of their weapons, equipment, and valuables. For the most part, though, the descent went well. Soon there were several hundred BMK officers right where they were supposed to be: on the Plain of Stars, waiting for the rest of their troops to climb down.
Suddenly, the sky above the valley floor opened up.
Even though it was a clear day, a huge bank of black clouds appeared, and a lightning bolt went shooting across the sky. Emerging from the cloud was the first space cruiser dispatched from Moon 39. This made the officers on the valley floor breathe a little easier. The ship was carrying more than eleven thousand men. Once they were put on the ground, the BMK force in the immediate area would almost double in size, with more to come.
But just then came a terrible noise. It was louder than the crack of thunder caused when the space cruiser popped in. This screech was loud enough for the troops down on the plain to drop their equipment and cover their ears. Looking up, they saw a speck of silver falling out of the sun. It was trailing a long plume of white smoke behind it and was twisting through the sky at a very unnatural rate. It was down near the ground in less than a second. Only then did the BMK troops realize this was the enemy's red, white, and blue magic weapon that had been inflicting huge casualties on the Bad Moon Knights ever since they'd landed on this planet.
This time it had announced its arrival with a tremendous sonic boom.
The craft streaked right over the plain, then turned upward, creating another massive boom. Then its nose opened up in a blinding flash, and six blaster beams shot out of it. Their intended target was the space cruiser, which had just come into view. The BMK troops on the plain and up on the ridge watched in horror as the small flying machine began mercilessly blasting away at the suddenly vulnerable starship. There was no way the cruiser could shoot back; it didn't carry any defensive weapons. Nor could the troops on the ground fire at the attacker. It was moving way too fast.
So the BMK troops could only watch helplessly as the strange flying machine began looping around the floundering starship, the deadly ray blasts from its nose never stopping for very long. It took only a few passes before something exploded on the, underbelly of the three thousand-foot-long ship. This was followed seconds later by another, even larger explosion on the top side of the gigantic vessel. The cruiser began wobbling in the air not a quarter mile above the battlefield. The mysterious aircraft delivered one long, final blaster barrage to the ship's bridge, then departed at very high speed to the west. A stream of soldiers began pouring out of one of the spacecruiser's jump ports. The ship had tried to unload its troops, even though it was under attack. But it was way too late for that.
There was another titanic explosion, and now the cruiser slowly began to turn over. Gushing huge sheets of flame and smoke, it went completely inverted and slammed into the ground right at the base of Fire Rock Ridge, killing all 11,500 troops on board plus more than four hundred BMK officers who had just climbed down from the ridge top.
Just seconds later, the second and third space cruisers popped in above the battlefield.
Their pilots did not dawdle as the first ship had. They set down immediately on the Plain of Stars, about a half mile east of the Ghost River, side by side. They opened all access ramps and soon thousands of BMK soldiers were streaming out of the starships, running for their lives. Then came another screech. The fourth space cruiser had blinked in. But now another thunderous blast, and the small red, white, and blue craft was back again.
It immediately went for the fourth space cruiser, still breaking out of its cloud about one thousand feet above the plain. The small flying machine hammered away at the bottom of the space cruiser with its six rings of blaster fire. Obviously, a vulnerable spot had been identified on the starship's underbelly. This time it took only two passes by the multicolored aircraft before the spacecruiser's aft section exploded, slamming the huge ship to the ground about a mile south of Fire Rock Ridge. This done, the flying machine whipped around, strafed the troops still pouring out of the two landed cruisers, then climbed straight up and disappeared from sight.
Somehow in the middle of this tumult, the fifth space cruiser arrived and set down about a mile north of the ridge. It began dispensing its troops, but at that exact moment, two of the eight stolen Master Blasters poking out of the enemy's front line became operational. Multitubed barrels level to the ground, their operators opened up on the troops streaming out of the fifth space cruiser. Hundreds of soldiers were vaporized in seconds. The cruiser itself took massive hits on its rear stabilizer legs. Both were blown away, causing the rear end of the huge ship to crumple to the ground. A huge fire broke out on the vessel's bridge, located in a bubble at the opposite end of the ship. A symphony of alarms could be heard going off within the cruiser now, like death bells, tolling away. Finally, the two forward landing struts collapsed as well, and the rest of the mortally wounded ship slammed into the ground.
The sixth space cruiser never appeared at all. It had been shot down by the ascending flying machine soon after entering the atmosphere.
As all this was happening, pure pandemonium broke out on top of Fire Rock Ridge.
The wreckage from the first space cruiser to go down was still exploding, raining pieces of flaming metal down upon those soldiers stuck on top of the cliff. Deaux's personal shuttle had taken off long ago, leaving all but his special security troops behind. This left the surviving soldiers on the ridge with only one option: They began withdrawing the only way possible, down a narrow truck path, which wound its way down the eastern side of the ridge. These troops were strafed endlessly by the 33418 danker on the way down, though. So much so, that when the majority of the six thousand or so soldiers reached the bottom of the ridge, they started walking east, away from the battlefield.
They had had enough.
It was just about this time that the shuttles sent back to get more troops from Saint Louis and other points east began returning.
They'd appeared above Fire Rock, hoping to set down on top of the ridge as before. But that was no longer viable; the ridge was a sea of flaming wreckage and bodies. Having no other choice, the shuttles began landing right on the Plain of Stars itself. At this point, two more of the stolen Master Blasters came on-line, and now four of the frightening weapons were firing point-blank on the deploying BMK troops. The turmoil that had racked Fire Rock Ridge had moved right down to the valley floor itself. The BMK soldiers from Moon 39 had never encountered anything like this before. They were used to invading helpless planets with little or no opposition at all. Now they were in the midst of what was called in ancient terms a VH-LZ: a very hot landing zone.
The shuttles themselves were nearly five hundred feet long, sleek, tubular, with many windows. Their landing systems were rudimentary, though. These vessels were built to do two things: take off and land. They weren't good at hovering or doing anything that required lateral flight. Their pilots were at a loss on how to find a safe place to set down among the Master Blaster beams, the thousands of battlefield casualties, the bodies, the fires, the smoke, and the wreckage of three enormous space cruisers.
The Plain of Stars was suddenly a very crowded place, and three hundred shuttles needed space to set down. The confusion on the battlefield had now taken over the air above. Shuttles began bumping into each other, then colliding. Some had already landed and were dispensing their one thousand-man contingents; some had not. There were more crashes. The air was filled with blaster bolts and gunfire. And just when it seemed it couldn't get any worse, the flying machine showed up again.