Guy put the alien instrument in his personal locker and went to see
how the battle was coming. Out across the face of Mephisto, he saw the
battle machinery locked in mobile death with the huge, alien machines
of Mephisto.
The ground was strewn with smoking ruin, and Guy saw with horrified
gratification that the ruined machinery was all on the Terran side of
the battleground--which meant that his ring of offense was advancing.
The energy bombs were bursting above the planethead, and the sky was
filled with blinding light. Sub-ships fell as their drive was burned by
the entrapped energy within the barriers, and Guy wondered how many
men were getting energy burns from the terrific radiation from the
energy bombs.
_Orionad_, standing in the circle of planeted ships, was dealing power
blows from the turrets, and beams of energy--just energy--were roving
the sky to saturate the barrier-protected sub-ships. Now and then a
MacMillan beam would touch one of the sub-ships unawares, and there
would be a terrific blast as the entire ship exploded instantly.
Then Guy saw his forces waver slightly, fall back, and then go down in
a terrible wave of destruction from massed sub-ships.
Again they retreated, and as the next wave dropped, they expended their
energy on nothing but the bald surface of Mephisto. The solid ice of
Mephisto boiled into great clouds of vapor and liquid water ran across
Mephisto's face for the first time.
The vapor clouded operations--for both.
One sub-ship scraped Mephisto--broke the barrier, and slid through a
crashing pile of accumulating rubble to a destructive stop.
And on one upthrust plate, torn and almost obliterated, was the device
of the Martian Space Guard!
"Martian!" breathed Guy.
"Right!" agreed Ben.
"Check that wreck!" exploded Guy. "What's running it!"
His order was passed: fifty Terran machines raced forward and encircled
the smoking ruin; and seven of the planeted constellation ships blasted
a pathway back to safety for the carry-alls.
The ruined Martian ship was dropped in a clear area, opened by brute
force, and through the torn plates streamed a group of cautious
Terrans. They emerged immediately.
"Martians!"
"The devil! They've made a pact!"
Maynard looked understandingly at the broken ship. "Naturally," he said
sourly. "What would you do?"
Williamson looked up and nodded. "Right. Well, does this change
anything?"
"No--unless it is to apply what we know about fighting Martians to the
present situation. We didn't consider this possibility."
As Maynard turned to re-enter the _Orionad_, eighteen of Hamilton's
raiding horde returned in a screaming landing. Hamilton came out,
white-faced, and said, dully: "It was sheer hell--both ways. We got
'em--but they hit us with the book. Sixty percent lost!"
"How do you feel?" asked Maynard.
"I don't know."
"Take your command out again and hit Sector F-67."
Hamilton looked up in surprise, and then anger crossed his face. He
saluted and said: "Yes sir!"
As he turned to go, Maynard called softly: "Hamilton! We're fighting
Martians now--they've made a pact!"
Hamilton turned, looked at Maynard, and muttered something that Guy
could not hear over the roar of battle. Then he returned, and faced
Guy.
"The stinking, rotten devils--!" His face cleared, and he left.
* * * * *
Behind the embattled lines of the Mephistans, Martian craft landed.
Martian sluggers, Martian power-craft, Martian constellation class
super battlecraft. And as they were landing, and getting set for an
open battle, the Terran forces lined up behind the thin line that
flanked _Orionad_.
It was a situation that made Maynard start. For years, no real action
had ever been fought between the two forces. Sorties, scrapes,
incidents; these had been the sum total of the trouble between the
denizens of two worlds. Ream upon ream had been written concerning
theoretical battle-plans for war against Mars, and in the Martian
pictographs, equally large quantities of ink and paper went into the
libraries on how to fight Terra.