Bond showed his back to the porthole. ‘He had to fly.’ There was another eerie sound of metal under strain. ‘Come on. So have we.’ He started to move back towards the central globe when a U.S. space marine appeared in the doorway. He saw Bond and raised his laser gun.
‘No!’ Holly threw herself forward.
‘Dr Goodhead!’ The man hesitated as a sergeant appeared behind him.
‘Jesus Christ!’ He looked at Holly and craned forward in disbelief. ‘You’re from NASA.’
Bond lunged forward to address the sergeant. ‘I’m with her. What’s the situation in the Command Centre?’
‘We’re in control but the station is breaking up. We’re dropping into atmosphere.’
Bond staggered back as a violent explosion shook the corridor. Looking across to the next corridor arm he saw the metal begin to twist and the whole structure start to break away from the central globe. Like something in a slow motion film the satellite began to swing round towards them. The corridor ruptured and there was an ear-splitting scraping noise as metal ground against the top of the buckling corridor they were standing in. The huge mass of the severed satellite shut out their view of space and then scraped clear and spun clumsily into the darkness.
‘Get the hell out of here! Back to the shuttle!’
An officer lurched past, shouting at the top of his voice. The sergeant looked as if he had no desire to hang around. ‘Are you coming? We’re docked on one of the satellites — if it’s still there.’
Bond looked around him desperately and turned to Holly. ‘There’s still those three nerve gas globes. We can’t just leave them.’
‘What can we do?’ Her voice was a shout. The corridor was beginning to bend. The sergeant had disappeared.
‘There must be some way we can destroy them before they get into the Earth’s atmosphere.’
‘James! Look!’ Holly grabbed his arm and pointed out of the window towards the command satellite. Moored against it was a Moonraker with a figure 5 on its side.
‘Drax’s shuttle.’
‘It’s armed with a laser gun. He showed it off to me after I was captured.’
‘You think we could use it against those nerve gas globes?’
‘What other choice do we have?’
As if to provide an answer, the corridor arm groaned under stress and all the lights went out. Bond started to run towards the satellite. There was a cracking noise and for a second he thought that the whole station was breaking up. Out in space a shape loomed from behind the central globe, and he saw that it was the U.S. shuttle. At least somebody was going to be saved. Bond threw his shoulder against the door leading into the satellite and prayed that the closure round the air-lock chamber of the Moonraker had not broached. After two steps into the chamber he could still stand on his feet and breathe air. The thin barrel of the laser gun emerged from the nose of the shuttle. Bond pulled back the hatch to the control chamber and dived across the seats. Holly scrambled in beside him and reached for a safety strap. There was a violent upheaval and Bond’s head hit the cabin roof. The satellite lurched as if it had struck something. Bond knew that at any second the whole corridor arm was going to break off. If they did not get away immediately they would join it spiralling crazily into space. Holly jabbed at a switch and then jabbed again. Lines of tension cut deep into her face.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘It’s the docking system. I can’t disengage it. It must be jammed.’
Bond swore and activated the exit hatch on his side of the cabin. As it slid back he jumped out and moved to the access hatch of the Moonraker. The whole binding rod assembly had been jerked sideways and was now buckled in its setting so that the thick metal pincers would not open. They stuttered feebly like the mouth of a dying fish. Bond dropped to his knees and tried to pull them apart. A second’s effort told him that he was wasting his time. Behind him there was a sharp crack like an ice floe beginning to break up. Bond’s forehead was lathered with sweat. Fear ran through him like a fast-moving current. He turned to see if there was anything he could use as a lever. Almost opposite the nose of the Moonraker was a turn-table launching ramp bearing one of the globular space carts. Bond turned again and found himself face to face with Jaws. There was a trickle of blood running down from the corner of his mouth and his clothes were torn. His eyes were those of a wild animal caught in a car’s headlights.
Bond waited for the man to act. Was it going to be life or death? Jaws looked at Bond and then down to the binding rods. Without a gesture, he lumbered forward and sank to his knees. His huge hands closed on the metal bars and he pulled until the veins stood out on his forehead like pencils. One two-inch bar rose from its setting and Jaws dropped his head and closed his blood-stained teeth about it. There was a harsh grating noise and Bond saw the steel teeth slowly bite through the metal. It snapped, and at that instant the satellite dropped ten feet. Bond was thrown backwards. He rose to find that although one of the binding rods was free, the fall had caused the air-lock securing assembly to wedge deeper into its housing. Jaws tore at it with his hands but could not separate the Gordian knot of twisted metal. Bond joined him but their combined efforts quickly proved that the task was beyond human strength. Jaws rose, breathing heavily, and pressed his hands against the structure of the Moonraker. He pushed and looked to see what was happening to the metal housing. There was a faint upward movement. Jaws looked round the satellite. The cracking sound was now continuous, as if a crevasse was opening up. Jaws pointed to himself and gestured towards the space cart. Then he pushed Bond towards the door of the Moonraker. Bond hesitated but Jaws was already pulling open the hatch of the space cart. Bond pulled himself into the Moonraker beside Holly. She turned to him anxiously.
‘What’s happening?’
‘I don’t really know. I think he’s going to try and push us out.’
Holly gave the disengage switch one more abortive ffick and sat back in her seat. ‘Jesus!’
Bond said nothing. Jaws was now inside the space cart, looking like a goldfish that had outgrown its bowl. As the craft started to tremble, another figure appeared in the satellite. A pretty girl in astronaut’s uniform. She ran forward and beat on the side of the space cart. Jaws slid.pen the hatch and she scrambled in. Now there was a noise like a ship beginning to founder and Bond could feel the tail of the Moonraker tilting upwards. The satellite was beginning to break away; but the nose of the shuttle still held securely. It would be dragged down to inevitable destruction. Holly was manipulating the controls like an organ console. The space cart started.down the ramp as if fired from a gun, and there was a crash that jarred Bond sideways and then back in his seat. He glimpsed Jaws’s face pressed against the screen of the.space cart and then felt the whole structure of the Moonraker jerk sideways. Suddenly the satellite dropped away and he was looking across the infinity of space towards a million stars. Beside him Holly whooped her delight.
‘We’re clear! We’re clear!’
Bond looked to his right and saw the central globe of the space station folding in on itself like a deflated football. Somewhere in its heart flames erupted and were rapidly snuffed. The remaining satellites were breaking away, carrying their buckled corridors with them. As they fell through space to enter the Earth’s atmosphere they began to glow red. One disintegrated in a meteor shower. Bond twisted his head and searched for the satellite they had just left. Had it carried Jaws and the girl to their deaths?