The Onslaught from Rigel, Fletcher Pratt [smallest ebook reader .TXT] 📗

"Probably you're right. They can't have less than one Lassan in each globe.... Of course, they might control them by radio, with the thought-helmets and have the crews all robots, but that wouldn't be a Lassan way of doing things. And I doubt if they'd think radio safe, anyhow, even if they know about it, of which I'm not sure. We're shedding any amount of static around, and would play merry hell with most any radio. Wish I knew how they worked that gravity screen, though. I'll bet a boat-load of Monitors against a thought-helmet that it's magnetic."

"Wish we had some way to signal the rest of the fleet," said Ben, as they swung into their position at the head of the formation again. "I don't want them pushing in there with the gravity-beam if it isn't going to do any good."

Murray laughed. "They'll find it out soon enough. I think we've got plenty speed to beat those infra-sound rays, too. If that's as strong as they come, we've got 'em licked."

"Don't crow yet, boy friend," said Gloria. "You don't know what those babies have up their sleeves—excuse me, their trunks."

As the American fleet formed for a mass attack, the Lassan globes had been rising, and now they were a bare five thousand feet below the rocket-cruisers, swinging along at a height of 25,000 feet above the earth in the last rays of the setting sun. As the green globes rose they took their places in a formation like an enormous crescent, the ends of which were extended as each new globe came up to join it.

"Looks like they want to get us in the middle and pop us from all directions at once," observed Sherman. "Well, here goes. Pick the end of the line; that's our best chance. How's your potential, Gloria?"

"O. K., chief," she answered. "Lightning this time?"

He nodded. The rockets of the Monitor II roared; its prow dipped forward, and at an incredible speed it swept down on the line of Lassan warships, followed by the rest of the American fleet. But it was no surprise this time. As the monitors plunged in, from every green globe that could bring them to bear, the long yellow rays shot forth. Right through them the Monitor II plunged; the grate of it, even through their double coating of armor and the vacuum chambers, set their teeth on edge; then the rocket-ship was pointing directly down at one of the Lassans and Gloria snapped the key that released the artificial lightning.

A jagged beam of flame, intenser than the hottest furnace, leaped through the air, struck the green globe, and sought the earth in a thousand tiny rivulets of light. For just a second the globe seemed unharmed; then slowly, and almost majestically, it began to dissolve in mid-air, spouting flames at every pore. Fully ten miles down and beyond, the Monitor turned again, and not till then did the sound of the explosion reach them, a terrific, rending thunder-clap.

"See that?" cried Sherman. "That formation of theirs isn't so dumb. They've got it all ranged out; none of our ships can get at them without coming through at least one of those yellow rays, and if we stay in them too long—blooie!"

They peered through the windows at the formation. Off at one side, they could make out the forms of two more rocket-ships, outlined against the sky, while behind and above them pursued by the searching yellow beams, came the rest. As they turned, they saw the gravity-beam shoot from one of the American ships, crumple uselessly against a green globe. Then they plunged in, again, firing the gravity beam earthward to work up the potential for another lightning discharge.

The hills below rocked and roared to the repeated shock. Trees fell in crashing ruin as lightning-bolt or infra-sound shivered them to bits; great cars of burned earth and molten rock marked the spots where the gravity-beam struck the ground. All round was a maze of yellow rays, lightning flashes, and green globes that reeled, rose, fell, sometimes blowing up, sometimes giving ground, but always fighting back sternly and vigorously and always rising through the clear spring evening.

Murray Lee, at the rear of the ship, was the only one to see an American rocket-ship, caught and held for a few fatal moments by two yellow rays, slowly divest itself of its outer armor, then of its inner, and go whirling to the earth, dissolved into its ultimate fragments by those irresistible pennons of sound.

Gloria Rutherford at the prow was the only one to see another caught bow-on in a yellow ray, reply by firing its gravity-beam right down the ray and into the green globe through the port from which the ray had issued. The ray went out—a spreading spot of flame appeared at the port and the great green globe crumpled into a little ball of flame before her eyes. But such events as these were the merest flashes in the close-locked combat. For the most part they had time to do nothing but handle the controls, throw switches to and fro, shoot forth gravity-beam and lightning-flash in endless alternation at the Lassan ships of which there always appeared to be one more right before them as Sherman twisted and turned the Monitor with a skill that was almost uncanny.

Suddenly he pulled out; the four looked round. They were miles high; below half hidden in the dusk, were the red and brown roofs of a city. Far away on the horizon the battle still roared; a rolling cloud of smoke now, shot with the vivid fires of the American lightning flashes. The wings of their ship were spread; they were soaring gently earthward without the application of the rocket power.

"Had to get away for a minute," Sherman explained. "We were heating up from the speed. My God, but we're high up; at least 45,000 feet!"

"Yes, and getting higher," Ben pointed out. "Those green globes must be headed for the moon."

"Do you know, I wouldn't be a bit surprised but what you're right," replied Sherman, "I'll bet an oil-ball against the whole Lassan city that they think we can't navigate space and they're trying to get above us and then hang around and pop us when we have to land. Well, come on gang, let's get back."

He shot the wings in again, worked the controls, and they headed back toward the conflict.

It was less of a turmoil now, more of an ordered swing, charge, pass and charge again against the diminishing number of the Lassan globes. Of the American rocket-ships Gloria could now count but two beside their own. One she had seen break up; whether the others, badly damaged, had hauled out for repairs, or whether, riven by the deadly yellow ray, they had gone crashing to the earth, there was no way of knowing. But the Lassans were not escaping unharmed; there were hardly a third as many as at the beginning and even as they approached another one disappeared in the vivid flash of the rocket's lightnings. Still the rest rose steadily on, going straight up as though they indeed hoped to escape their tormentors by rising to the moon.

They dived in: Gloria pressed the lightning key and another Lassan globe blew up; then they were climbing again. Beneath them the night had come. The earth was a dark mass, far down, and from that enormous distance looked slightly dished out at the edges. But though the earth was dark, at that ultimate height of the atmosphere the sun had not yet set. Still the strange fight went on, higher and higher. The roar of the exhaust explosions died away behind them and Murray looked questioningly at Sherman.

"Out this far, there isn't much air," he said. "Takes air to conduct sound. Wonder what they're up to, anyway. All right, Gloria."

He dived at another Lassan and she pressed the lightning ray; but this time there was no flash, no flaming Lassan ship falling in ruins to the ground.

"Who'd have thought it!" said Sherman, as he swung the Monitor round after the charge. "Of course—we're up so high that we've made a spark gap that even lightning won't jump. But I don't get their idea; those sound rays won't be any good out here, either."

The Monitor turned again, speeding back toward the remaining Lassan ships; with a startling shock of surprise, Gloria noticed that there were only two. Down below them one of the last three American rocket-cruisers had spread her wings and was gliding gently toward the earth. Like the Monitor's, her crew had evidently found the lightning flash worthless at the enormous altitude and was abandoning the battle till conditions became more favorable. The other rocket remained faithful; turned as they turned and charged up with them toward the last of the Lassans.

It was a weird scene. They had climbed so far that the earth was now perceptibly round beneath them; a vague line marked the westward progress of the sunset and beyond it the sun, an immense yellow ball, set with a crown of vividly red flames, hung in the inky-black heavens. On the opposite side, the stars, more brilliant and greater in number than any ever before viewed by the eye of man, made the sky a carpet of light across which the green globes moved like shadows, their undersides illumined by the sun.

As the Monitor approached, the nearest globe seemed to be turning on its axis. Suddenly, out of the side that faced them, came the quick, stabbing beam of the light-ray, like the flicker of a sword. It struck the Monitor full on the prow. There was a burning rain of sparks past the windows; the rocket-ship leaped and quivered, and those within felt, rather than saw, something give. Then, with a tremendous explosion, all the more horrible because utterly without sound, the great globe that had thrown the ray, burst into fragments.

And at the same moment the Monitor began to fall. Down, down, down went the rocket-cruiser with the round ball of the earth rising to meet them at a speed incredible. The sun went out; they were swallowed in a purple twilight as they plunged. The earth changed from a ball to a dish, from a dish to a plane, from a plane to a dark mass without form, and in the mass vague lights and glimmerings of water came out, and still their course was unchecked, still Sherman fought frantically with the useless controls.

Desperately Murray pressed the firing keys of the stern-rockets; unchecked she drove on, almost straight down, plunging to certain destruction. The earth loomed nearer, nearer, the end seemed inevitable—.

Then Gloria saved them. In some moment of inspiration, she threw on the searchlight; and the automatic connection fired the gravity-beam. There was a shattering report; the course of the Monitor was halted, and bruised and broken, she tumbled over and over to the ground, safe but ruined.

"Suffering Lassans!" said Ben Ruby, as they picked themselves out of the wreckage, "but that was a jar. What hit us, anyway?"

Sherman pointed to Gloria, breathlessly. "Give the little girl a hand," he ejaculated. "She sure pulled us out of the fire that time."

"I'll say she did," said Murray, "but what happened, anyway? I thought that light-ray of theirs wouldn't work on these ships."

"It won't—in air," said Sherman ruefully, surveying the wreck of the Monitor. "But the air blankets down the effect a lot. Out there we got the whole dose. Even then it shouldn't have hurt us so seriously, but I expect a lot of our lead sheathing got jarred loose when we went through those yellow rays and when they let that light-ray go, she leaked all over the place. Wonder what made that Lassan ship blow up like that, though? I thought she sure had us."

"Oh," said Ben, "I think maybe I did that. When the light-ray came on it occurred to me that the gravity-beam might go down their beam of light just as fast as it would down ours, and they must have a port-hole or something through their gravity-screen or they couldn't let the ray out. So I just let them have it."

"Boy, you sure saved the lives of four of Uncle Sam's flying men that time. About one second more of that stuff and we'd have cracked up right there. Look at the front of our bus. The outer plating is all caved in and the inner is starting to go."

"She is pretty well used up isn't she? What gets me though, is that there's one more of those things loose."

"Look!" cried Gloria suddenly, pointing upward.

Far in the zenith above them they saw a point of light; a point that grew and spread and became definite as a great star; then it became a shooting star, plunging earthward, and so great was its