Grantline led us. We held about level. Five hundred feet beneath us
the brigand ship lay, cradled on the rocks. When it was still a mile
away from us I could see all its outline fairly clearly in the
dimness. Its tiny hull windows were dark; but the blurred shape of the
hull was visible, and above it the rounded cap of dome, with a dim
radiance beneath it.
We followed Grantline's platform. It was rising, drawing the others
after it like a tail. I touched Anita where she lay beside me with her
head half in the small hooded control bank.
"Going too high."
She nodded, but followed the line nevertheless. It was Grantline's
command.
I lay crouched, holding the inner tips of the flexible side shields.
The bottom of the platform was covered with the insulated fabric.
There were two side shields. They extended upward some two feet,
flexible so that I could hold them out to see over them, or draw them
up and in to cover us.
They afforded a measure of protection against the hostile rays, though
just how much we were not sure. With the platform level, a bolt from
beneath could not harm us unless it continued for a considerable time.
But the platform, except upon direct flight, was seldom level, for it
was a frail, unstable little vehicle! To handle it was more than a
question of the controls. We balanced, and helped to guide it with the
movement of our bodies--shifting our weight sidewise, or back, or
forward to make it dip as the controls altered the gravity pull in its
tiny plate sections.
Like a bird, wheeling, soaring, swooping. To me, it was a precarious
business.
But now we were in straight flight diagonally upward. The outline of
the brigand ship came directly under us. I crouched tense, breathless;
every moment it seemed that the brigands must discover us and loose
their bolts.
They may have seen us for some moments before they fired. I peered
over the side shield down at our mark, then up ahead to get
Grantline's firing signal. It seemed long delayed. An added glow down
there must have warned Grantline that a shot was coming from there.
The tiny red light flared bright on his platform.
I turned on our Benson curve light radiance. We had been dark, but a
soft glow now enveloped us. Its sheen went down to the ship to reveal
us. But its curving path showed us falsely placed. I saw the little
line of platforms ahead of us. They seemed to move suddenly sidewise.
It was everyone for himself now; none of us could tell where the other
platforms actually were placed or headed. Anita swooped us sharply
down to avoid a possible collision.
"Gregg?"
"Yes. I'm aiming."
I was making ready to drop the small explosive globe bomb. Our search
light ray at the camp, answering Grantline's signal, shot down and
bathed the enemy ship in a white glare, revealing it for our aim.
Simultaneously the brigand bolts came up at us.
I held my bomb out over the shield, calculating the angle to throw it
down. The brigand rays flashed around me. They were horribly close;
Miko had understood our sudden visible shift and aimed, not where we
appeared to be, but approximately where we had been before.
I dropped my bomb hastily at the glowing white ship. The touch of a
hostile ray would have exploded it in my hand. I saw others dropping
also from our nearby platforms. The explosions from them merged in a
confusion of the white glare--and a cloud of black mist as the
brigands out on the rocks used their darkness bombs.
We swept past in a blur of leaping hostile beams. Silent battle of
lights! Darkness bombs down at the ship struggling to bar our camp
searchray. The Benson radiance rays from our passing platforms,
curving down to mingle with the confusion. The electronic rays
sending up their bolts....
Our platforms dropped some ten dynamitrine bombs in that first passage
over the ship. As we sped by, I dimmed the Benson radiance. I peered.
We had not hit the ship. Or if we had, the damage was inconclusive.
But on the rocks I could see a pile of ore carts scattered--broken
wreckage, in which the litter of two or three projectors seemed
strewn. And the gruesome deflated forms of several helmeted figures.
Others seemed to be running, scattering--hiding in the rocks and
pit-holes. Twenty brigands at least were outside the ship. Some were
running over toward the base of our camp ledge. The darkness bombs
were spreading like a curtain over the valley floor; but it seemed
that some of the figures were dragging their projectors away.
We sailed off toward the opposite crater rim. I remember passing over
the broken wreckage of Grantline's little spaceship, the _Comet_.
Miko's bolts momentarily had vanished. We had hit some of his outside
projectors; the others were abandoned, or being dragged to safer
positions.
After a mile we wheeled and went back. I suddenly realized that only
four platforms were in the re-formed line ahead of us. One was
missing! I saw it now, wavering down, close over the ship. A bolt
leaped up diagonally from a distant angle on the rocks and caught the
disabled platform. It fell, whirling, glowing red--disappeared into
the blur of darkness like a bit of heated metal plunged into water.
One out of six of our platforms already lost! Three men of our small
force gone!
But Grantline led us desperately back. Anita caught his signal to
break our line. The five platforms scattered, dipping and wheeling
like frightened birds--blurring shapes, shifting unnaturally in flight
as the Benson curve lights were altered.
Anita now took our platform in a long swoop downward. Her tense,
murmured voice sounded in my ears:
"Hold off; I'll take us low."
A melee. Passing platform shapes. The darting bolts, crossing like
ancient rapiers. Falling blue points of fuse lights as we threw our
bombs.
Down in a swoop. Then rising. Away, and then back. This silent warfare
of lights! It seemed that around me must be bursting a pandemonium of
sound. Yet there was none. Silent, blurred melee, infinitely
frightening. A bolt struck us, clung for an instant; but we weathered
it. The light was blinding. Through my gloves I could feel the tingle
of the over charged shield as it caught and absorbed the hostile
bombardment. Under me the platform seemed heated. My little Erentz
motors ran with ragged pulse. I got too much oxygen. I was dully
smothering....
Then the bolt was gone. I found us soaring upward, horribly tilted. I
shifted over.
"Anita! Anita, dear, are you all right?"
"Yes, Gregg. All right."
The melee went on. The brigand ship and all its vicinity were
enveloped in dark mist now--a turgid sable curtain, made more dense by
the dissipating heavy fumes of our exploding bombs which settled low
over the ship and the rocks nearby. The searchlight from our camp
strove futilely to penetrate the cloud.
Our platforms were separated. One went by, high over us. I saw another
dart close beneath my shield.
"God, Anita!"
"Too close! I didn't see it."
Almost a collision.
"Gregg, haven't we broken the ship's dome yet?"
It seemed not. I had dropped nearly all my bombs. This could not go on
much longer. Had it been only about five minutes? Only that? Reason
told me so, yet it seemed an eternity of horror.
Another swoop. My last bomb. Anita had brought us into position to
fling it. But I could not. A bolt stabbed up from the gloom and caught
us. We huddled, pulling the shields up and over us.
Blurred darkness again. Too much to the side now. I had to wait while
Anita swung us back. Then we seemed too high.
I waited with my last bomb. The other platforms were occasionally
dropping them: I had been too hasty, too prodigal.
Had we broken the ship's dome with a direct hit? It seemed not.
The brigands were sending up catapulted light flares. They came from
positions on the rocks outside the ship. They mounted in lazy curves
and burst over us. The concealing darkness, broken only by the flares
of explosions, enveloped the enemy. Our camp searchlight was still
struggling with it. But overhead, where the few little platforms were
circling and swooping, the flares gave an almost continuous glare. It
was dazzling, blinding. Even through the smoked pane which I adjusted
to my visor I could not stand it.
But these were thoughts of comparative dimness. In a patch where the
Earthlight struck through the darkness of the rocks, I saw another of
our fallen platforms! Snap and Venza?
It was not they, but three figures of our men. One was dead. Two had
survived the fall. They stood up, staggering. And in that instant,
before the turgid black curtain closed over them, I saw two brigands
come rushing. Their hand projectors stabbed at close range. Our men
crumpled and fell....
We were in position again. I flung my last missile, watched its light
as it dropped. On the dome roof two of Miko's men were crouching. My
bomb was truly aimed--perhaps one of the few in all our bombardment
which landed directly on the dome roof. But the waiting marksmen fired
at it with short range heat projectors and exploded it harmlessly
while it was still above them.
We swung up and away. I saw, high above us, Grantline's platform,
recognizing its red signal light. There seemed a lull. The enemy fire
had died down to only a very occasional bolt. In the confusion of my
whirling impressions, I wondered if Miko were in distress. Not that!
We had not hit his ship; perhaps we had done little damage indeed! It
was we who were in distress. Two of our platforms had fallen--two out
of six. Or more, of which I did not know.
I saw one rising off to the side of us. Grantline was over us. Well,
we were at least three. And then I saw the fourth.
"Grantline is calling us up, Gregg."
Grantline's signal light was summoning us from the attack. He was a
thousand feet or more above us.
I was suddenly shocked with horror. The searchray from our camp
suddenly vanished! Anita wheeled us to face the distant ledge. The
camp lights showed, and over one of the buildings was a distress
light!
Had the crack in our front wall broken, threatening explosion of all
the buildings? The wild thought swept me. But it was not that. I could
see light stabs from the cliff outside the main building. Miko had
dared to send some men to attack our almost deserted camp!
Grantline realized it. His red helmet light semaphored the command to
follow him. His platform soared away, heading for the camp, with the
other two behind him.
Anita lifted us to follow. But I checked her.
"No! Off to the right, across the valley."
"But Gregg!"
"Do as I say, Anita."
She swung us diagonally away from both the camp and the brigand ship.
I prayed that we might not be noticed by the brigands.
"Anita, listen: I've got an idea!"
The attack on the brigand ship was over. It lay enveloped in the
darkness of the powder gas cloud and its own darkness bombs. But it
was uninjured.
Miko had answered us with our own tactics. He had practically unmanned
the ship, no doubt, and had sent his men to our buildings. The fight
had shifted. But I was now without ammunition, save for two or three
bullet projectors.
Of what use for our platform to rush back? Miko expected that. His
attack on the camp was undoubtedly made just for that purpose: to lure
us back there.
"Anita, if we can get down on the rocks somewhere near the ship, and
creep up unobserved in that blackness...."
I might be able to reach the manual hull lock, rip it open and let the
air out. If I could get into its pressure chamber and unseal the inner
slide....
"It would wreck the ship, Anita: exhaust all its air. Shall we try
it?"
"Whatever you say, Gregg."
We seemed to be unobserved. We skimmed close to the valley floor, a
mile from the ship. We headed slowly toward it, sailing low over the
rocks.