Taj Lamor gazed down at the tremendous field below him. In it lay close
packed a great mass of ships, a concourse of Titans of Space,
dreadnoughts that were soon to set out to win--not a nation, not even a
world, but to conquer a solar system, and to win for their owners a vast
new sun, a sun that would light them and heat them for long ages to
come.
Momentarily Taj Lamor's gaze followed the retreating figure of Tordos
Gar, the Elder; a figure with stooped shoulders and bowed head. His
quiet yet vibrant parting words still resounded in his ears:
"Taj Lamor, remember what I tell you. If you win this awful war--you
lose. As will our race. Only if you lose will you win."
With a frown Taj Lamor stared down at the vast metal hulls glistening
softly in the dull light of far-off stars, the single brightly beaming
star that was their goal, and the dim artificial lighting system. From
the distance came to him the tapping and humming of the working machines
below as they strove to put the finishing touches to the great ships.
He raised his eyes toward the far-off horizon, where a great yellow star
flamed brilliantly against the black velvet of space. He thought of that
planet where the sky had been blue--an atmosphere of such intensity that
it colored the sky!
Thoughtfully he gazed at the flaming yellow point.
He had much to consider now. They had met a new race, barbarians in
some ways, yet they had not forgotten the lessons they had learned; they
were not decadent. Between his eon-old people and their new home stood
these strange beings, a race so young that its age could readily be
counted in millennia, but withal a strong, intelligent form of life. And
to a race that had not known war for so many untold ages, it was an
unthinkable thing that they must kill other living, intelligent beings
in order that they might live.
They had no need of moving, Tordos Gar and many others had argued; they
could stay where they were forever, and never find any need for leaving
their planet. This was the voice of decadence, Taj Lamor told himself;
and he had grown to hate that voice.
There were other men, men who had gone to that other solar system, men
who had seen vast oceans of sparkling water, showering from their
ruffled surfaces the brilliant light of a great, hot sun. They had seen
towering masses of mountains that reached high into the blue sky of a
natural atmosphere, their mighty flanks clothed with green growth;
natural plants in abundance.
And best of all, they had fought and seen action, such as no member of
their race had known in untold ages. They knew Adventure and Excitement,
and they had learned things that no member of their ancient race had
known for millennia. They had learned the meaning of advancement and
change. They had a new ardor, a new strength, a new emotion to drive
them, and those who would have held them back became enthusiasts
themselves. Enthusiasm may be contagious, but the spirit of their
decadence was rapidly failing before this new urge. Here was their last
chance and they must take it; they would!
They had lost many men in that battle on the strange world, but their
race was intelligent; they learned quickly, the small ships had been
very hard targets, while their big ships were too easy to strike. They
must have small ships, yet they must have large ships for cargo, and for
the high speed driving apparatus. The small ships were not able to
accelerate to the terrific speed needed. Once their velocity had been
brought up to the desired value, it was easy to maintain it with the
infinitely small friction of space as the only retarding force; one atom
per cubic inch was all they must meet. This would not hold them up, but
the great amount of fuel and the power equipment needed to accelerate to
the desired speed could not be packed into the small ship. Into the vast
holds of the huge ships the smaller ones were packed, long shining rows
of little metal projectiles. Tiny they were, but they could dart and
twist and turn as swiftly as could the ships they had met on that other
world--tiny ships that flashed about with incredible suddenness, a
target that seemed impossible to hit. These ships would be a match for
those flashing motes of the Yellow Sun. Now it might be that their great
transport and battle ships could settle down to those worlds and arrange
them for their own people!
And they had discovered new weapons, too. One of their mightiest was a
very old apparatus, one that had been forgotten for countless ages. A
model of it was in existence in some forgotten museum on a deserted
planet, and with it long forgotten tomes that told of its principles,
and of its consequences. Invisibility was now at their command. It was
an ancient weapon, but might be exceedingly effective!
And one other. They had developed a new thing! They had not learned of
it in books, it was their invention! They did not doubt that there were
other machines like it in their museums, but the idea was original with
them. It was a beam of electrical oscillatory waves, projected with
tremendous energy, and it would be absorbed by any conductor. They could
melt a ship with this!
And thus that great field had been filled with Giants of Space! And in
each of these thousand great warships there nestled three thousand tiny
one-man ships.
Here was a sight to inspire any race!
Taj Lamor watched as the last of the working machines dragged its slow
way out of the great ships. They were finished! The men were already in
them, waiting to start, and now there was an enthusiasm and an activity
that had not been before; now the men were anxious to get that long
journey completed and to be there, in that other system!
Taj Lamor entered his little special car and shot swiftly down to the
giant cruisers. He stepped out of his little craft and walked over to
the tube conveyor ready for the trip to the nose of the great vessel.
Behind him attendants quickly moved his car to a locked cradle berth
beside long rows of similar vehicles.
A short while later those who were to remain on the dark planet saw the
first of the monsters of space rise slowly from the ground and leap
swiftly forward; then as methodically as though released by automatic
machinery, the others leaped in swift pursuit, rushing across half a
world to the tremendous space lock that would let them out into the
void. In a long, swift column they rushed on. Then one at a time they
passed out into the mighty sea of space. In space they quickly formed
and set out.
As though by magic, far to the left of their flight, there suddenly
appeared a similar flight of giant ships, and then to the right, and
above them, another seemed to leap out of nothingness as the ships of
other planets came into sight. Quickly they formed a vast cone about
their leader's ship, a protecting screen, yet a powerful offensive
formation.
Endlessly, it seemed, they sped on through the darkness. Then as the
yellow star flamed brighter and brighter before them, they slowed their
ships till the small fliers could safely be released into space.
Like a swarm of insects flying about giant birds of space the little
ships circled the mighty masses of the battle cruisers. So huge were
they, that in the combined mass of the fleet there rested sufficient
gravitational attraction to force the little fliers to form orbits about
them. And so they sped on through the void, the vast conical fleet with
its slowly circling belt of little ships. A fleet whose counterpart had
never entered the Solar System.
It was well beyond the orbit of Pluto that the first of the Solarian
scouts detected the approaching invasion fleet. The tension that had
gripped Earth and Venus and their guardian ships for so long a time
suddenly snapped; and like a great machine set into sudden motion, or a
huge boulder, balanced, given the last push that sends it spinning with
destructive violence down a slope, the fleet went into action.
It was merely a little scout, a ten-man cruiser, that sent in the
message of attack, and then, upon receiving headquarters' permission,
went into action. Some of the tacticians had wanted to try to get the
entire fleet into battle range for a surprise attack in power; but
others felt that this could not possibly succeed. Most important, they
decided, was the opportunity of learning if the invaders had any new
weapons.
The Nigrans had no warning, for a ten-man cruiser was invisible to them,
though the vast bulk of their own ships stood out plainly, lighted by a
blazing sun. No need here to make the sun stand still while the battle
was finished! There was no change out here in all time! The first
intimation of attack that the Nigrans had was the sudden splitting and
destruction of the leading ship. Then, before they could realize what
was happening, thirty-five other destructive molecular motion beams were
tearing through space to meet them! The little ten-man cruiser and its
flight of speedsters was in action! Twenty-one great ships crumpled and
burst noiselessly in the void, their gases belching out into space in a
great shining halo of light as the sun's light struck it.
Unable to see their tiny enemies, who now were striking as swiftly, as
desperately as possible, knowing that death was practically certain,
hoping only to destroy a more equal number of the giants, they played
their beams of death about them, taking care to miss their own ships as
much as possible.
Another ship silently crumpled, and suddenly one cruiser right in the
line of the flight was brought to a sudden halt as all its molecules
were reversed. The ships behind it, unable to stop so suddenly, piled
up on it in chaotic wreckage! A vast halo of shining gas spread out
fifty thousand miles about, blinding further the other ships, the
radiance about them making it impossible to see their tiny enemies.
Now other of the Solarian ships were coming swiftly to the attack.
Suddenly a combination of three of the ten-man cruisers stopped another
of the great ships instantaneously. There was another soundless crash,
and the giant mass of wreckage that heaped suddenly up glowed dully red
from the energy of impact.
But now the little ships of the invaders got into action. They had been
delayed by the desperate attempts of the dreadnaughts to wipe out their
enemies with the death rays, and they could not cover the great
distances without some delay.
When a battle spreads itself out through a ten-thousand mile cube of
space--through a thousand billion cubic miles of space--it is impossible
to cover it instantaneously with any machine.
Already nearly a hundred and fifty of the giant liners had gone into
making that colossal mass of junk in space. They must protect the
remaining cruisers! And it was that flight of small ships that did
protect them. Many of the Solarians went down to death under their rays.
The death rays were exceedingly effective, but the heat rays were not
able to get quite as long a range, and they were easily detected by the
invisibility locators, which meant certain destruction, for a molecular
motion ray would be there in moments, once they had been located.
The main fleet of the Solar System was already on its way, and every
moment drew closer to this running battle, for the great ships of the
Nigrans had, although they were entering the system cautiously, been
going at a very high speed, as interplanetary speeds are measured. The
entire battle had been a running encounter between the two forces. The
Solarian force, invisible because of its small size, was certainly
getting the better of the encounter thus far, but now that the odds were
changing, now that the small ships had come into the fray, engaging
them at close range, they were not having so easy time of it.
It would be many hours before the full strength of the Solarian fleet
could be brought to bear on the enemy. They were not able to retire and
await their arrival, for they _must_ delay the Nigran fleet. If even one
of those great ships should safely reach the two planets behind them--!
But within a half hour of the original signal, the Rocket Squad had
thrown itself into the battle with a fervor and abandon that has given
that famous division a name that will last forever.
The small fliers of the Nigrans were beginning to take an appalling toll
in the thinning ranks of the Solarians. The coming of the Rocket Squad
was welcome indeed! They were able to maneuver as swiftly as the enemy;
the speedsters were harder to spot than the Solarian ten-man and
thirty-man boats. The Solarian speedsters were even smaller than the
comparable Nigran craft, and some of these did a tremendous amount of
damage. The heat ray was quite ineffective against the ten-man ships,
even when working at full capacity, when produced by the small
generators of the Nigran one-man boats. The cruisers could absorb the
heat and turn it into power faster than the enemy could supply it. Beams
from the monster interstellar liners were another matter, of course.
But the one-man speedsters had a truly deadly plan of attack against the
liners. The plan was officially frowned upon because of the great risks
the pilots must take. They directed their boats at one of the monster
ships, all the power units on at full drive. As close to target as
possible the man jumped from his ship, clothed, of course, in an
altitude suit equipped with a radio transmitter and receiver.
Death rays could not stop the speedsters, and with their momentum, the
invaders could not make it less deadly with their heat beam, for,
molten, it was still effective. A projectile weighing twenty-two tons,
moving a hundred miles a second, can destroy anything man can lift off a
planet! Their very speed made it impossible to dodge them, and usually
they found their mark. As for the risk, if the Solarian forces were
victorious, the pilots could be picked up later, provided too long a
time had not elapsed!
In the midst of the battle, the Solarians began to wonder why the Nigran
fleet was decreasing so rapidly--certainly they had not caused all that
damage! Then suddenly they found the answer. One of their ships--then
another--and another fell victim to a pale red ray that showed up like a
ghostly pillar of luminosity coming from nowhere and going nowhere! The
answer? The invaders' ships were becoming invisible! The invisibility
detectors were being overloaded now, and the hunt was hard, while the
Nigrans were slipping past them and silently destroying Solarian ships!
The molecular motion rays were quite effective on an invisible
ship--once it had been found. They were destroying the Nigrans as
rapidly as they were being destroyed, but they were letting some of them
slip past! The luminous paint bombs and bullets were now called into
play. All enemy ships were shot at with these missiles, and invisibility
was forestalled.
At long last the dark bulk of the main fleet approached, a scarcely
visible cloud of tiny darting metal ships. The battle so far had been a
preliminary engagement. The huge ships of the Nigrans were forced to
stop their attack, and releasing the last of the fliers, to retire to a
distance, protected by a screen of small ships, for they were helpless
against the Solarian speedsters. Invisibility fell into disfavor, too,
now that there were plenty of Solarian ships, for the Nigrans were more
conspicuous when invisible than when visible. The radio detector could
pick them out at once.
The entire Nigran fleet was beginning to reveal the disorder and
uncertainty that arose from desperation, for they were cornered in the
most undesirable position possible. They were outside the Solarian
fleet, and their ships were lighted by the glare of the sun. The
defenders, on the other hand, were in such a position that the enemy
could see only the "night" side of them--the shadowed side--and, as
there was no air to diffuse the light, they were exceedingly hard to
find. In the bargain, the radium paint was making life for the Nigrans a
brief and flitting thing!
The invaders began to pay an awful toll in this their first real
engagement. They lacked the necessary power to cover the entire Solarian
fleet with their death rays, and their heat weapons were of little help.
The power of the small ships did not count for much--and the big liners
could not use their weapons effectively for their small fliers must be
between them and their adversary. Despite this, however, the Nigrans so
greatly outnumbered the Earth-Venus forces that it looked as though a
long and costly war lay ahead.
At last the Solarian generals tried a ruse, a ruse they hoped would work
on these beings; but they who never before had to plan a war in space,
were not sure that their opponents had not had experience in the art.
True, the Nigrans hadn't revealed any especially striking
generalship--had, in fact, committed some inexcusable blunders--but they
couldn't be sure. Though they didn't know it, the Solarians had the
advantage of thousands of years of planetary warfare to rely on. This
stood them in good stead now.
The Nigrans were rallying rapidly. To their surprise, the forces of the
Solarians were dwindling, and no matter how desperately this remnant
fought, they could not hold back the entire force of the Nigran fliers.
At last it appeared certain that the small ships could completely engage
the Solarian fleet!
Quickly the giant cruisers formed a great dense cone of attack, and at a
given signal, the fliers cleared a hole for them through the great
disc-shaped shield of the defenders. And with all their rays fanned out
in a 100% overlap ahead of them, the Nigran fleet plunged through the
disc of ships at close to four hundred miles per second. They broke
through--were on their way to the unprotected planets!
The Solarian ships closed the gap behind them, and eighteen of the giant
ships burst into wreckage as powerful beams found them, but for the most
part the remnant of the defending forces were far too busy with the
fliers to attack the large ships. Now, as the monster engines of
destruction raced on toward the planets still approximately two billion
miles away, they knew that, far behind them, their fliers were engaging
the Solarians. They had left their guard--but the guard was keeping the
enemy occupied while they were free to drive in!
Then from nowhere came the counterattack! Nearly five thousand
thirty-man ships of Earth and Venus, invisible in the darkness of space,
suddenly leaped into action as the dreadnoughts sped past. Their
destroying rays played over the nigh-helpless giants, and the huge ships
were crumbling into colossal derelicts. With the last of their guard
stripped from them, they fell easy prey to the attackers. Faster than
they could keep count they were losing their warships of space!
The ruse had worked perfectly! Nearly all of the ten-man and one-man
ships had been left behind them in the original disc, while all the
thirty-man light cruisers, and a few hundred each of the ten-man and
one-man crafts sped away to form a great ring twenty thousand miles
farther back. The Nigran fleet had flown blindly into the ambush.
There was only one thing left for them to do. They were defeated. They
must return to their far-off black star and leave the Solarians in
possession of their worlds. For all battle purposes their great force
was nearly wiped out, only the fliers remained in force; and these could
no longer be carried in the remnant of the great liners. Swiftly they
fell back, passing again through the disc, losing thirty more vessels,
then raced swiftly away from the fleet of their enemies.
The Solarians, however, were not content. Their ships were forming in a
giant hollow cylinder, and as the sphere of the Nigrans retreated, their
beams playing behind them, the cylinder moved forward until it
surrounded them, and they raced together toward the distant lightless
sun. The Solar end of the cylinder swiftly closed, blocked by a group of
huge ships which had taken no visible part in the battle. The Nigrans
had stopped using their rays; and the Solarians followed in armed
readiness, not molesting as long as they were not molested.
Many days this strange flight lasted, till at last the great yellow sun,
Sol, had faded in the distance to an unusually brilliant star. Then,
suddenly visible out of the darkness, a strange black world loomed
ahead, and the Nigran ships settled swiftly toward it. Through the
airlocks the great liners settled to their planet. No action was taken
so long as the Solarian ships were not menaced, but for eight long
months the darting ships hung above the four englobed worlds of Nigra.
Then at last the astronomers of Earth and Venus sent through the
billions of miles of ether their message of safety. The guard could
return home, for the sun they had been guarding would soon be too far
from Earth or Venus to make any attack logical. Despite this, for years
to come the fleet would guard the rim of the System, just to be sure;
but it appeared that the suns had passed, never again to meet.
A strange thing had happened during the passing of the stars. Pluto no
longer circled Sol; it had been captured by Nigra! The great fleet
returned to a changed Solar system. Sol was still at its center, but
there were now ten planets, including two new ones that the sun had
captured from Nigra in return for Pluto; and all the planets had shifted
a bit in their orbits.
What the ultimate effect on the planets will be, we cannot say as yet.
The change thus far is certainly not very great, though a somewhat
warmer climate exists now on Earth, and it is a bit cooler on Venus. The
long-range difference, however, will be exceedingly interesting.
The Solar System has just passed through an experience which is probably
unique in all the history of the mighty nebula of which our sun is an
infinitesimal part. The chances that one star, surrounded by a system of
planets, should pass within a hundred billion miles of another star,
similarly accompanied, was one in billions of billions. That both
systems should have been inhabited by intelligent races--
It is easy to understand why the scientists could not believe Arcot's
theory of attack from another sun until they had actually seen those
other worlds.
In that war between two solar systems we learned much and lost much.
Yet, in all probability we gained more than we lost, for those two
new-old planets will mean tremendous things to us. Already scientists
are at work in the vast museums and ancient laboratories that are on
them, and every day new things are being discovered. We lost many men,
but we saved our worlds, and we learned many invaluable secrets from the
invaders. In addition, we have but scratched the surface of a science
that is at least a thousand million years old!