Astounding Stories, February, 1931 Part 43

He turned to run back to the building, only to stop in consternation where a huddle of clothing lay beneath the balcony of their prison room.

It was Sykes--Sykes who had sacrificed himself to make possible the escape of his friend--and McGuire dropped to his knees to touch the body that he knew was shattered beyond any hope of life. He raised the limp burden in his arms and staggered back where more khaki-clad figures had gathered. Two came quickly out to meet him, and he let them take the body of his friend.

"_C'est fini!_"--he repeated the words that Sykes had said; "the end of our little journey!" The arms of Althora were about him as Blake hurried them into the waiting s.h.i.+p, and the roar of enormous power marked the rising of this s.p.a.ce s.h.i.+p to throw itself again into the fray.

A small room with a dome of shatter-proof gla.s.s; a pilot who sat there to look in all directions, a control-board beneath his hands. Beside him on his elevated station was room for Captain Blake, and McGuire and Althora, too. The s.h.i.+p was climbing swiftly. McGuire saw where flas.h.i.+ng shapes circled and roared in a swelling cloud of smoke and gas.

Blake spoke sharply to an aide: "General orders! All s.h.i.+ps climb to resume formation!"

An enemy s.h.i.+p was before them: it flashed from nowhere to bear down with terrific speed. The floor beneath them shook with the jarring of heavy guns, and McGuire saw the advancing shape bursting with puffs of smoke, while their own s.h.i.+p shot upward with a sickening twist. A silver s.h.i.+p was falling!--and another!

"Two more of ours gone," said Captain Blake through set teeth. "How many of them are there, Mac? Tell me what you know: we've got a h.e.l.l of a fight on our hands."

"They're all here," McGuire told him, in jerky, breathless speech.

"These are transports on the ground. Their weapons are gas and speed, and the rams on their beaked s.h.i.+ps. There are other weapons--deadlier ones!--but they haven't got them: they belong to another race. I'll tell you all that later!"

"Keep them at a distance, Blake," he said. "Make them come to you--then nail them as they come."

"Right!" was the answer; "that's good dope. We didn't know what they had; expected some devilish things that could down us before we got within effective range; had to mix it with them to find out what they could do, and get in a few solid cracks before they did it.

"How high are we?" He glanced quickly at an instrument. "Ten thousand.

Order all s.h.i.+ps to withdraw," he instructed his aide. "Rendezvous at fifty thousand feet for echelon formation."

Another brush with an enemy craft that slipped quickly to one side--then the smoke clouds were behind them, and a score, of silvery shapes were climbing in vertical flight for the level at fifty thousand.

They were fewer now than they had been, and the line that formed behind the flags.h.i.+p of Blake was shorter than the one that had made the V which shot down so bravely to engage with an unknown foe.

The enemy was below; an arrangement of mirrors showed this from the commander's station. They were emerging from the clouds of smoke to swarm in circling flight through the sky. And now the bow of their own craft was depressed at an order from Blake, and the others were behind them as they drove to renew the attack.

"They're ganging up on us again," said Blake. "We'll fool them this time; we'll just kid them a little."

The flags.h.i.+p swerved before reaching the enemy, and the others followed in what looked like frightened retreat. Again they were in the heights, and some few of the enemy were following. Blake led in another descent.

No waiting swarm to greet them now! Blake gave a quick order. The roaring column s.h.i.+fted position as it fell: the flags.h.i.+p was the apex of a great V whose arms flung out and backward on either side--a V formation that curved and twisted through s.p.a.ce and thundered upon the smaller formations that scattered before the blasting guns.

"Our bow guns are the effective weapons," Blake observed; his casual tone was a sedative to McGuire's tense nerves. "We can use a broadside only of lighter weight; the kick of the big 'sights' has to be taken straight back. But we're working, back home, on recoil-absorbing guns: we'll make fighting s.h.i.+ps of these things yet."

He spoke quietly to the pilot to direct their course toward a group that came sweeping upon them, and the ma.s.sed fire of the squadron was squarely into the oncoming beaks that fell beneath them where the mirrors showed them cras.h.i.+ng to the earth.

They were scattered now; the enemy was in wild disorder; and Blake spoke sharply to his aide.

"Break formation," he ordered; "every s.h.i.+p for itself. Engage the enemy where they find them; shoot down anything they see; prevent the enemy reforming!" He was taking quick advantage of the other's scattered forces, and he scattered his own that he knew could take care of themselves while they engaged the enemy only by ones or twos or threes.

"Clear the air of them!" he ordered. "Not one of them must escape!"

The skies were a maze of darting shapes that crossed and recrossed to make a spider's web of light. s.h.i.+p drove at s.h.i.+p, to swerve off at the last, while the air quivered and beat upon them with the explosion of sh.e.l.ls and guns.

"There's our meat!" Blake directed the pilot, and pointed ahead where a monster in scarlet was swelling into view.

It came swiftly upon them, darting down from above, and McGuire clutched at the arm of the man beside him to shout: "It's the leader; the flags.h.i.+p! It's the Emperor--Torg, himself! Give him h.e.l.l, Blake, but look out--he's fast!"

The s.h.i.+p was upon them like a flash of fire; no time for anything but dodging, and the pilot threw his craft wildly aside with a swerve that sent the men sprawling against a stanchion. Then up and back, where the other had turned to come up from below.

"Fast!" McGuire had said, but the word was inadequate to describe the speed of the fiery shape.

Another leap in the air, as their pilot swung his controls, and the red shape brushed past them in a cloud of gas, while the quick-firers ripped futilely into s.p.a.ce where the great s.h.i.+p had been.

"Get your bow guns on him!" Blake roared. The s.h.i.+p beneath them strained and shuddered with the incredible thunder of the generator that threw them bodily in the air. The pilot had opened in full force the ports that blasted their bows aside.

No time to gather new speed; they were motionless as the scarlet monster came upon them, but they were in position to receive him. The eight-inch rifles of the forward turret thundered again and again, to be answered by flashes of flame from the scarlet s.h.i.+p.

McGuire crouched over the bent form of the pilot, whose steady fingers held the s.h.i.+p's bow straight upon the flas.h.i.+ng death that bore down upon them. Another salvo!--and another!--hits all of them.... Smoke bursting from ripping plates, and flaming fire more vivid than the scarlet shape itself!--and the floor beneath McGuire's feet drove crus.h.i.+ngly upward as their pilot pulled a lever to the full.

The great beak flashed beneath--and the mirrors, where McGuire's eyes were fastened, showed the terrific drive continue down and down, where a brilliant cylinder that marked the power of Venus tore shriekingly on to carry an Emperor to his cras.h.i.+ng death.

The skies were clear of the red-striped s.h.i.+ps: only the survivors of the attacking force showed their silvery shapes as they gathered near their flags.h.i.+p. There were two that pursued a small group of the enemy, but they were being outdistanced in the race.

"We have won," said Blake in a tone of wonder that showed how only now had come a realization of what the victory meant. "We have won, and the earth--is saved!"

And the voice of McGuire echoed his fervent "Thank G.o.d!" while he gripped the soft hand that clung tightly to his, as if Althora, this radiant creature of Venus, were timid and abashed among the joyful, shouting men-folk from another world.

"And now what, Captain?" asked McGuire of his command. "Will you land?

There is an army of reds down there asking for punishment."

Blake had turned away; his hand made grimy smears across his face where he wiped away the tears that marked a brave man's utter thankfulness. He covered his emotion with an affectation of disapproval as he swung back toward McGuire.

"Captain?" he inquired. "Captain? Where do you get that captain stuff?"

He pointed to an emblem on his uniform, a design that was unfamiliar to the eyes of McGuire.

"You're talking to an admiral now!--the first admiral of the newest branch of your country's fighting service--commanding the first fleet of the s.p.a.ce s.h.i.+ps of the United States of America!" He threw one arm about the other's shoulders. "We'll have to get busy, Mac," he added, "and think up a new rank for you.

"And, yes, we are going to land," he continued in his customary tones; "there may be survivors of our own crashes. But we'll have to count on you, Mac, to show us around this little new world of yours."

There was an army waiting, as McGuire had warned, but it was waiting to give punishment and not to take it. The vast expanse of the landing field was swarming with them, and the open country beyond showed columns of marching troops.