Tony Cellini

Tony Cellini was a member of Moonbase Alpha's Reconnaissance Section.

History
Tony Cellini was a colleague with John Koenig and Victor Bergman; he and Koenig were equally considered for command of the Ultraprobe Mission to a newly-discovered planet in the solar system, while the other would command ground support operations for the mission. Base Commander Gorski was leaving it to the two men to make the decision. By a coin toss, Cellini won command of the flight.

Cellini and his three crew left to operate an apparently routine interplanetary flight. Upon arrival at Ultra, they detected a cluster of objects moving near (but not in orbit around) Ultra, approached, and Cellini made the decision to dock with one of the cluster of alien spacecraft, from which no life signs were detected. Cellini was the only immediate survivor of the encounter, in which an alien entity took physical form to consume the other crew members in a ghastly process. Cellini then survived a desperate attempt to return to the vicinity of Earth, where the command module of the Ultraprobe was recovered and brought to Moonbase Alpha.

Cellini's report of the events drew not just disbelief, but ridicule, from Earth authorities and from psychiatrists, and his report was not supported by the data storage device recovered from the command module.

His friend Koenig did not entirely believe Cellini about the creature, but did believe Cellini about his report of alien spacecraft, and urged the commissioner of the International Lunar Commission to support a second mission to return to Ultra and check out the alien craft. Bergman also gave some dispassionate support, but all three were temporarily suspended from duty.

Eventually, Cellini, Koenig and Bergman were serving again at Moonbase Alpha, and were there on 13 September 1999 when the moon was thrust out of the solar system.

Some months later, Cellini awoke to what seemed like a dream, but manifested as an image in his quarters. He seized an Eagle with the intent of flying in search of his nightmare enemy, but was halted before he could lift off. Hours later, the wandering Moon came upon an assemblage of alien spacecraft. Koenig and Bergman together acknowledged its eerie similarity to what Cellini's original report asserted. The Ultraprobe was then discovered among the assemblage of craft. Koenig was ready to give Cellini a chance to vindicate himself, accompanying them on a reconnaissance.

Cellini, either preferring to spare Alpha the risk, or determined to destroy his enemy without any assistance, abandoned the rest of the Eagle crew complement and lifted off without the passenger compartment. He discarded the Eagle's main frame and engines, and maneuvered the Eagle cockpit to dock with the Ultraprobe.

Ray weapons had proven futile against the creature, so Cellini had a small bladed weapon, and entered the Ultraprobe's main cabin, where the creature appeared as the rotating illumination then as the monstrous beast. Cellini was in a losing battle with it when Koenig and crew docked with the side of the Ultraprobe and entered. While Cellini lost his life the same way that his crew did, Koenig followed through on Cellini's attack and was able to kill the creature, allowing the Eagle crew to travel back to Alpha without the creature among them.

Koenig and Helena Russell (who was one of those who dismissed Cellini's fantasies to his face back in 1997) reflect that Cellini and the alien creature could be part of their own mythology for the world they would yet need to find and settle.