The Renegade
Rocket fleets arrived ceaselessly, pouring men and materials into South
Jupiter from earth and Mars. The recruiting offices on earth were
working night and day. Crane took the men they sent and mixed them
with his veterans, drilled them, trained them in Jovian fighting, made
disciplined armies of them. He concentrated men and materials at the
equatorial posts.
For Crane was going to follow a different plan in North Jupiter.
Instead of establishing a network of posts as on Mars and South
Jupiter, he was going to encircle Jupiter with a thin band of earth
forces and then push that band northward toward the pole. His circle,
Crane saw, would grow smaller and stronger the farther north it pushed,
and would drive the Jovians in North Jupiter onward until those not
slain were hemmed in in the warm north polar region.
It took two years of preparation before Crane deemed his forces
sufficient. Neither he nor Burnham had in that time heard anything of
Halkett, nor had anyone else. Burnham thought that Halkett must be
dead. But both had other things enough to think of when Crane began
the long-planned campaign. With his forces encircling the equator of
the planet, he ordered an advance. The band around the planet began to
crawl north.
Fighting with the flipper-men began in days. The Jovians by that time
knew better than to charge atom-blasts or expose themselves to the
barrage of atomic bombs. They tried a kind of guerilla fighting which
was not ineffective in the dense fern forests. But Crane's forces
simply blasted the forests out of the way as they advanced, and the
Jovians had either to flee or be slain.
Crane moved his headquarters north behind his band of forces. He
directed the band's northward movement by radio, sending reinforcements
in rockets to whatever part that was held back by fiercer resistance.
Crane chose to advance slowly and avoid undue losses. There was no
haste--the Jovians were being pushed ever northward by the contracting
circle. Within a half-year earth heard that its forces had advanced
half the distance between Jupiter's equator and northern pole.
Then came to earth surprising news of a check to Crane's advance.
His band had been flung back with heavy losses by the Jovians at a
half-dozen places around the planet! Incredibly, it had been done by
Jovians armed with atom-blasts and atomic bombs! They had prepared a
circle of rude trenches and earth-works at strategic locations around
the planet and had inflicted terrible damage on Crane's band of men
when it advanced to that circle!
Earth was aflame instantly with apprehensive excitement. Until then
it had taken Crane's final success as certain--the Council had even
granted future concessions to the North Jupiter territories. How had
the primitive Jovians come to use the atomic weapons? From Crane,
who had hastily halted the advance of his circle, came the answer.
The Jovians were being led by a renegade earthman who for the past
two years had been training them in the production and use of the
atom-blasts and bombs. And this renegade was Mart Halkett!
[Illustration: The Jovians were being led by a renegade earthman, who
had been training them in the use of atom-blasts and bombs.]
Halkett had been recognized unmistakably by some of Crane's officers
during the attack on the Jovian works, had been seen directing the
Jovian defense. Halkett! The man who seven years before had played
the traitor and who now had become renegade, leading the flipper-men
against his own race! It was evident that on his release from prison
Halkett had got to South Jupiter in some rocket and then had made his
way into North Jupiter and used his technical skill and prison factory
experience to set the Jovians making atom-blasts and atomic bombs and
digging defenses for the coming struggle.
Halkett became immediately the supreme malefactor to the earth peoples.
On earth and on Mars and on South Jupiter men flamed with rage at his
name. A thousand deaths were advocated for Halkett if ever he were
captured. Crane and Burnham and the rest of the Council Army's men
appeared even greater in heroism against the black background of this
renegade's treachery. A fierce desire to crush the Jovians and execute
Halkett swept earthmen everywhere.
"You will enter into no treatments whatever with the Jovians' renegade
leader," flashed the Council to Crane. "Proceed with the North Jupiter
campaign according to your own judgment."
Crane read the message. He and Burnham had been stunned by the news
about Halkett and Crane for a time would not believe it. "It can't be
Halkett," he had said over and over. "I tell you, he wouldn't fight
against the Council--against us."
"It's beyond doubt," Burnham told him. "Halkett was recognized by men
who knew him well there with the Jovians. And you know what his views
have always been on the Jovians."
"Yes, but to become a renegade against his own race! I tell you, Burn,
Halkett could never have done that!"
Yet by the time the Council's message reached him, even Crane was
convinced that Halkett was the renegade Jovian leader. He called his
officers. "We will begin the advance again tomorrow," he said grimly.
"Radio all headquarters to make ready."
The advance started again, this time not calmly as before but in deadly
earnest. The band of earth-forces crawled forward until it met again
the line of Jovian defenses. Crane had flung all his forces forward in
that attack against Halkett's line, and the battle was terrific. But
this time the earthmen were attacking, and the Jovians fighting from
cover.
* * * * *
The Jovian atom-blasts and bombs, though comparatively few in number
and inefficiently handled, yet did terrific execution among the
advancing earthmen. Halkett's line held all around the planet though
the earthmen attacked like mad beings. Crane at last gave the order to
withdraw. Earth was appalled by the casualty lists that were sent home.
But though Crane was checked he was not stopped.
He let Halkett's Jovians alone until enough reinforcements had come in
to make up his losses. Then he started the attack again, but this time
not in a steady wave but in a series of punches. Great spear-heads of
men and atom weapons were thrust at Halkett's line in a dozen different
places. Crane's plan was to shatter the Jovian defenses by repeated
concentrated thrusts until it had to withdraw.
Halkett fought fiercely to hold that line. His communications were poor
though it was known he had trained some of the Jovians in radio and
was directing their fight all round the planet. He had no rockets and
could not parry Crane's smashing thrusts by rushing reinforcements to
the points attacked. He foresaw inevitable retreat and had the Jovians
prepare other lines of defenses farther north toward the pole. The
flipper-men followed him with absolute faith.
Soon Halkett was forced to withdraw the Jovians to the next of these
hastily prepared defense lines. Crane made no attempt to pursue the
Jovians but spread his forces again into a band and advanced northward,
destroying forests and mopping up stray groups of Jovians. When his
band reached Halkett's new line Crane did not attack but began again
his strategy of punching at the line.
The battle-lines on the Jupiter globes by which earth's people followed
the struggle crept steadily northward toward the pole in the following
year. Ever Halkett's Jovians were forced to retreat to new defenses and
ever after them came Crane and Burnham and the hosts of the Council's
army, contracting upon them in a steadily diminishing circle. They
would ultimately press the Jovians together near the pole and Halkett
fought to prevent that.
It was in some ways a strange situation. The three inseparable friends
of boyhood and youth become men and fighting the war of races there on
North Jupiter, one of them renegade to an alien race and the other two
advancing always with their forces on him. No one could accuse Crane
of letting his former friendship affect him, in the face of his grim
determination. He pushed Halkett's line unrelentingly northward.
And as Halkett's line, the defenses of the Jovians, reached the warm
polar regions, Halkett's own military genius flamed. He commanded the
Jovians in a way which, despite the meagerness of their atomic weapons,
held Crane's forces to the slowest advance. The once-mild flipper-men
fought like demons under his leadership. Crane, of all men, appreciated
Halkett's supreme generalship in those grim days on North Jupiter. But
he punched grimly on, and Halkett's circular line grew smaller and
smaller as the Jovians retreated.
It was the retreat of a race--the weary hosts of the Jovians ever
backing northward through the steamy fern forests that had been theirs
for untold time, throwing up new dirtworks and digging new trenches
always at Halkett's command, using every sort of ambush device Halkett
could think of to hold back the earthmen. The fern forests resounded
with the roar of atom-blasts and crash of atom-bombs, strange things
flopping this way and that in the green depths to escape the battle,
the Jovians all round the planet fighting bitterly now for existence.
And ever after them Crane's men, the metal-armored hosts of earthmen
struggling against every obstacle of heat and gravitation and illness.
For days they would toil through the giant ferns without meeting
resistance and then would come upon the new line Halkett had massed the
Jovians upon. And then again the blasts would be roaring in death from
Jovians and earthmen as the earthmen attacked. And ever despite their
desperate resistance the Jovians were pushed back northward, toward the
pole.
Reconnoitering rockets brought word to Crane that Halkett had
established a refugee camp near the pole that held several millions of
the Jovians and that he was collecting atom-blasts and bombs there and
digging works around it. Crane sought to cut this base out of Halkett's
circle but Halkett saw the maneuver and occupied the place with most
of his remaining forces. To do so he had to abandon his circular line
of defense except for some smaller bases. So at last the circle of
Halkett's line around North Jupiter was gone, and the Jovians held only
those fortified bases.
Earth flamed with gladness as Crane went systematically about the work
of reducing these bases. He sent Burnham with a force of earthmen
large enough to hold Halkett and his Jovians inside the main base,
while he reduced the smaller ones. There was bloody fighting before
he took them. Those Jovians, miserably few in number, who survived in
them, were sent to temporary prison-camps pending their removal to the
reservations established. Then with that done, Crane came with all his
forces and joined Burnham in front of the last Jovian base in which sat
Halkett and his battered remaining Jovians, fighters and refugees.
Crane surprised Burnham and his officers by stating he would treat with
Halkett for surrender, though the Council had ordered otherwise.
* * * * *
He sent in a messenger summoning Halkett to surrender and avoid further
bloodshed, promising the Jovians would be sent to reservations and
pointing out the futility of resistance.
Halkett's reply was calm. "There will be no surrender unless the
Jovians are given their rights as natives and owners of this planet.
Nothing the Jovians endure now can be worse than what they've already
gone through."
Crane read the answer to Burnham, his bronzed lined face set. "Halkett
and the Jovians mean it," he said. "They'll resist to the last and
we'll have to attack."
Burnham leaned to him. "Crane, tell me," he said, "are you trying to
save the Jovians in there or Halkett?"
Crane looked at him, heartsickness on his face. "Burn, it's not
Halkett. Better for him if he died in an attack rather than to be taken
back to earth and executed. But those Jovians--I'm tired of killing
them."
Burnham nodded thoughtfully. "But what are you going to do? Order the
attack tomorrow? The men are impatient to start it."
Crane thought, then surprised him. "Burn, you and I are going in to see
Halkett and try to get him to take these terms. He won't come out but
we can go in safely enough."
"But the Council----" Burnham began. Crane waved him impatiently aside.
"I'm conducting this campaign and not the Council. I say we're going
in."
He sent a message through the works to Halkett, and Halkett replied
that he would be glad to confer with General Crane and Colonel Burnham
regarding terms, but anticipated no change of mind. Crane ordered
all hostilities suspended and at sunset he and Burnham went with two
Jovians and a white flag toward the Jovian defenses. The misty red sun
was sinking behind the horizon, so distant from the huge planet, when
they reached the Jovian works.
The two flipper-men blindfolded them before taking them through the
dirtworks and entrenchments, no doubt at Halkett's order, and took
off the bandages when they were inside. Crane and Burnham saw before
them the great enclosure that held the innumerable masses of the
Jovian refugees. There was no shelter for most but at some sheds small
portions of fruit and makeshift vegetable foods were being rationed out
to some of them. The crowds of flipper-men, bulky strange figures in
the dying light, looked mildly at Crane and Burnham as they were led
through the great enclosure.
As they followed their guides Crane saw for himself the battered
Jovian forces he had pushed north for so long, with their crudely made
atom-blasts and bombs, many standing guard round the inner works. Here
and there in the enclosure were large dumps of atomic bombs, protected
by shelters. Near one of these was a small hut toward which the two
Jovians led them.
Halkett and three Jovians came out of the hut as Crane and Burnham
approached. Halkett and his aides waited for them and the two earthmen
went on toward them, with the slow laborious steps against the
gravity-drag that were second nature to earthmen on Jupiter now. It was
a strange meeting. The three had not met together since they had parted
on South Jupiter eight years before.
Halkett wore an old suit of the metal body-strengthening armor and
had a bandage round his lower left arm. His face was bronzed, and was
lined and worn-looking, but his eyes were calm. He was a contrast to
Crane and Burnham, trim in their metal body-protection with on it the
insignia of the Council army that Halkett once had worn.
Halkett did not offer to shake hands with them, but waited. Crane's
first words were confused and stiffly formal. He mentioned the terms.
"We can't accept them," Halkett told him calmly. "We've fought against
them from the first and these Jovians would rather die than go to your
Jovian reservations."
"But what else can you do?" asked Crane. "You know as well as I do that
I've enough forces to take this place and that we'll do it if you don't
give in."
"I know," said Halkett, "but the Jovians wouldn't do it if I told them
to, and I'm not going to tell them. Besides, I've a way out for these
Jovians."
"A way out?" Burnham said. "There's no way out with your works
completely surrounded."
One of the Jovians beside Halkett said something to him in his odd
bass voice. Halkett replied to him patiently, almost gently. Crane was
watching him. Halkett turned back to him.
"Be reasonable, Halkett," Crane urged. "You can't save the Jovians and
there'll be just that many more of them killed in the attack."
"Do a few more Jovians killed now make any difference?" Halkett asked.
"After all those killed on South and North Jupiter?"
He looked beyond them, thoughtful. "I wonder if Gillen foresaw any of
this that's happened on Mars and Jupiter when he made his flight? What
would Gillen think, I wonder, if he came back and saw all this that he
started?"
They were silent for a little while. The short Jovian day was over
and with the sunset's fading, twilight was upon them. Callisto and Io
were at the zenith and Ganymede was climbing eastward, the three moons
shedding a pale light over the great enclosure. Dimly they disclosed
the masses of dark flipper-forms about Crane and Burnham and Halkett.
* * * * *
Burnham and Crane could hear with Halkett the occasional bass voices of
the Jovians that were the only sounds. Most of them were silent and did
not move about, huddling in masses for the night. By the inner works
the Jovian fighters still stood calmly, big, dark motionless shapes
seen strangely through the dim-lit darkness.
Crane spoke with an effort, "Then that's your last word on the terms,
Halkett?"
Halkett nodded. "It's not mine, but that of the Jovians themselves."
Crane's restraint broke momentarily. "Halkett, why did you do it? Why
did you become renegade to your own race, no matter what happened? Why
have you made us hunt you north this way, fighting against you and with
a duty to kill you?"
"I'm not sorry, Crane," said Halkett. "I've come to love these
Jovians--so mild and child-like, so trustful to anyone friendly. It
just seemed that somebody ought to stand up for them and give them at
least a chance to fight. I don't care what you call me."
"Hell, let's get a rocket and the three of us will head for somewhere
else together!" cried the Jimmy Crane of ten years before. "Some other
planet--we'll make out without this damned Jupiter and earth and
everyone on them! How did we three ever get into this, against each
other, trying to kill each other?"
Halkett smiled, grasped Crane's hand then. "Jimmy!" he said. "You and
Burn and I, back with Drake's expedition, three kids--you remember? But
we can't change things now, and none of us are to blame, perhaps no one
at all is really to blame, for what's happened."
Jimmy Crane with an effort became General James Crane. "Goodbye,
Halkett," he said. "I'm sorry you can't accept the terms. Come on,
Burnham."
Burnham tried to speak, his face working, but Halkett only smiled
and shook his hand. He turned and went with Crane and the two Jovian
guides, to the inner edge of the enclosure's defenses.
They saw Halkett standing with his three Jovian aides where they had
left him. He was not looking after them. One of the Jovians was saying
something and Crane and Burnham could see momentarily in the dim light
Halkett's tanned, worn face as he turned to listen.
Crane and Burnham got back to their own camp and Crane called his
officers. "We'll not delay attack until tomorrow but will start in two
hours," he said. "They'll not expect an attack so soon."
Halkett must have expected it, though, for when the earth-forces
moved upon the Jovian works from all sides they were met by every
atom-blast of the Jovians. Europa had climbed into the sky by then and
Jupiter's four moons looked down on the terrific assault. Blasts roared
deafeningly and the thundering detonation of atomic bombs followed each
other ceaselessly as the hosts of earthmen clambered into the Jovian
works.
The Jovians beat back the attack. Crane concentrated forces in an
attack on the enclosure's west side. He sent his rockets overhead to
add to his barrage of atom-bombs and managed to make a breach in the
western defenses. Halkett, though, flung all his Jovians to close these
openings and Crane's forces were beaten back from it after terrible
losses on both sides.
Dawn was breaking after the brief night as Crane ordered the third
attack, one from all sides again with the heaviest forces on the
western side. This time Halkett could not concentrate his forces to
hold the western breach. The ground heaved with the roar of bombs and
blasts as the earthmen struggled in with high-pitched yells and with
hand blasts spitting.
They poured into the breach despite the mad resistance of the remaining
Jovian fighters, while on the eastern side the earth hosts also were
penetrating the Jovian works. Then, as Crane and Burnham watched from
the camp outside, they saw with the rising of the sun the sudden end.
The whole interior of the great circular Jovian enclosure went skyward
in a terrific series of explosions that wiped out not only all of
Halkett's Jovian followers and massed refugees but most of the Jovians
and many of the earthmen fighting in the surrounding works. There was
left only a huge crater.
"The dumps of atom-bombs there in the enclosure!" cried Burnham. "A
blast must have reached them and set them off!"
Crane nodded, his face strange. "Yes, a blast and in Halkett's hand. He
set them off to wipe out his Jovians rather than see them sent to the
reservations."
"My God!" Burnham cried. "That was Halkett's way out for the Jovians,
then----old Halkett----"
Crane looked stonily at him. "Didn't you see that that was what he
meant all the time to do? Give orders to round up those last Jovians in
the works and bring them in.
"Then send this message back to earth. 'Last Jovian base taken and
renegade Jovian leader Halkett dead. Jupiter under complete control.
Accept my resignation from Council Army. Crane.'"
THE END.