_Desperate Offensive_
"In with you!" ordered Grantline. "Get your helmets on! How many? Six?
Enough--get back there, Williams--you were last. The lock won't hold
any more."
I was one of the six who jammed into the manual exit lock. We went
through it: in a moment we were outside. It was less than three
minutes since the prowling brigands had been seen.
Grantline touched me just as we emerged. "Don't wait for orders! Get
them!"
"That fellow with the torch, the most dangerous--"
"Yes! I'm with you."
We went out with a rush. We had already discarded our shoe and belt
weights. I leaped, regardless of my companions.
The scurrying Martians had disappeared. Through my visor bull's-eye I
could see only the Earthlit rocky surface of the ledge. Beside me
stretched the dark wall of our building.
I bounded toward the front. The brigand with the torch had been at
this front corner. I could not see him from here: he had been
crouching just around the angle.
I had a tiny bullet projector, the best weapon for short range
outdoors. I was aware of Grantline close behind me.
It took only a few of my giant leaps. I landed at the corner,
recovered my balance, and whirled around to the front.
The Martian was here, a giant misshapen lump as he crouched. His torch
was a little stab of blue in the deep shadow enveloping him. Intent
upon his work, he did not see me. Perhaps he thought his fellows had
broken our exits by now.
* * * * *
I landed like a leopard upon his back and fired, my weapon muzzle
ramming him. His torch fell hissing with a silent rain of blue fire
upon the rocks.
As my grip upon him made audiphone contact, his agonized scream
rattled the diaphragms of my ear-grids with horrible, deafening
intensity.
He lay writhing under me, then was still. His scream choked into
silence. His suit deflated within my encircling grip. He was dead; my
leaden, steel-tipped pellet had punctured the double surface of his
Erentz-fabric, penetrated his chest.
Grantline's following leap landed him over me.
"Dead?"
"Yes."
I climbed from the inert body. The torch had hissed itself out.
Grantline swung on our building corner, and I leaned down with him to
examine it. The torch had fused and scarred the surface of the wall,
burned almost through. A pressure-rift had opened. We could see it, a
curving gash in the metal wall-plate like a crack in a glass
window-pane.
I went cold. This was serious damage! The rarefied Erentz-air would
seep out. It was leaking now: we could see the magnetic radiance of it
all up the length of the ten-foot crack. The leak would change the
pressure of the Erentz system, constantly lower it, demanding steady
renewal. The Erentz motors would overheat; some might go bad from the
strain.
Grantline stood gripping me.
"Damn bad!"
"Yes. Can't we repair it, Johnny?"
"No. Have to take that whole plate-section out, shut off the Erentz
plant and exhaust the interior air of all this bulkhead of the
building. Day's job--maybe more."
* * * * *
And the crack would get worse, I knew. It would gradually spread and
widen. The Erentz circulation would fail. All our power would be
drained struggling to maintain it. This brigand who had unwittingly
committed suicide by his daring act had accomplished more than he
perhaps had realized. I could envisage our weapons, useless from lack
of power. The air in our buildings turning fetid and frigid: ourselves
forced to the helmets. A rush out to abandon the camp and escape. The
buildings exploding--scattering into a litter on the ledge like a
child's broken toy. The treasure abandoned, with the brigands coming
up and loading it on their ship.
Our defeat. In a few hours now--or minutes. This crack could slowly
widen, or it could break suddenly at any time. Disaster, come now so
abruptly upon us at the very start of the brigand attack....
Grantline's voice in my audiphone broke my despairing rush of
thoughts. "Bad. Come on, Gregg; nothing to do here."
We were aware that our other four men had run along the building's
other side. They emerged now--with the running brigands in front of
them, rushing out toward the staircase on the ledge. Three giant
Martian figures in flight, with our four men chasing.
A bullet projector spat, with its queer stab of exploding powder fed
by the burning oxygen fumes of its artificial air-chamber--one of our
men firing. A brigand fell to the rocks by the brink of the ledge. The
others reached the descending staircase, tumbled down it with reckless
leaps.
Our men turned back. Before we could join them, the enemy ship down in
the valley sent up a cautious search-beam which located its returning
men. Then the beam swung up to the ledge, landed upon us.
We stood confused, blinded by the brilliant glare. Grantline stumbled
against me.
"Run, Gregg! They'll be firing at us."
We dashed away. Our companions joined us, rushing back for the porte.
I saw it open, reinforcements coming out to help us--half a dozen
figures carrying a ten-foot insulated shield. They could barely get it
out through the porte.
* * * * *
The Martian search-ray abruptly vanished. Then almost instantly the
electronic ray came with its deadly stab. Missed us at first, as we
ran for the shield. It vanished, and stabbed again. It caught us, but
now we were behind the shield, carrying it back to the porte, hiding
behind it.
The ray stabbed once or twice more.
Whether Miko's instruments showed him how serious that damage was to
our front wall, we never knew. But I think that he realized. His
search-beam clung to it, and his zed-ray pried into our interiors.
The brigand ship was active now. We were desperate: we used our
telescope freely for observation. And used our zed-ray and
search-light. Miko's ore-carts and mining apparatus were unloaded on
the rocks. The rail-sections were being carried a mile out, nearly to
the center of the valley. A subsidiary camp was being established
there, only a mile from the base of our cliff, but still far beyond
reach of our weapons. We could see the brigand lights down there.
Then the ore-shute sections were brought over. We could see Miko's men
carrying some of the giant projectors, mounting them in the new
position. Power tanks and cables. Light-flare catapults--little
mechanical cannons for throwing the bombs.
The enemy search-light constantly raked our vicinity. Occasionally the
giant electronic projector flung up its bolt as though warning us not
to dare leave our buildings.
* * * * *
Half an hour went by. Our situation was even worse than Miko could
know. The Erentz motors were running hot--our power draining, the
crack widening. When it would break we could not tell; but the danger
was like a sword over us.
An anxious thirty minutes for us, this second interlude. Grantline
called a meeting of all our little force, with every man having his
say. Inactivity was no longer a feasible policy. We recklessly used
our power to search the sky. Our rescue ship might be up there; but we
could not see it with our disabled instruments. No signals came. We
could not--or, at least, did not--receive them.
"They wouldn't signal," Grantline protested. "They'd know the Martians
would be more likely to get the signal than us. Of what use to warn
Miko?"
But he did not dare wait for a rescue ship that might or might not be
coming! Miko was playing the waiting game now--making ready for a
quick loading of the ore when we were forced to abandon our buildings.
The brigand ship suddenly moved its position! It rose up in a low flat
arc, came forward and settled in the center of the valley where the
carts and rail-sections were piled, and the outside projectors newly
mounted on the rocks. But the projectors only shot at us occasionally.
The brigands now began laying the rails from the ship toward the base
of our cliff. The chute would bring the ore down from the ledge, and
the carts would take it to the ship.
The laying of the rails was done under cover of occasional stabs from
the electronic projector.
And then we discovered that Miko had made still another move. The
brigand rays, fired from the depths of the valley, could strike our
front building, but could not reach all our ledge. And from the ship's
new and nearer position this disadvantage was intensified. Then
abruptly we realized that under cover of darkness-bombs an electronic
projector and search-ray had been carried to the top of the
crater-rim, diagonally across and only half a mile from us. Their
beams shot down, raking all our vicinity from this new angle.
* * * * *
I was on the little flying platform which sallied out as a test to
attack these isolated projectors. Snap and I and one other volunteer
went. He and I held the shield; Snap handled the controls.
Our exit-porte was on the lee side of the building from the hostile
search-beam. We got out unobserved and sailed upward; but soon a light
from the ship caught us. And the projector bolts came up....
Our sortie only lasted a few minutes. To me, it was a confusion of
crossing beams, with the stars overhead, the swaying little platform
under me, and the shield tingling in my hands when the blasts struck
us. Moments of blurred terror....
The voice of the man beside me sounded in my ears: "Now, Haljan, give
them one!"
We were up over the peak of the rim with the hostile projectors under
us. I gauged our movement, and dropped an explosive powder bomb.
It missed. It flared with a puff on the rocks, twenty feet from where
the two projectors were mounted. I saw that two helmeted figures were
down there. They tried to swing their grids upward, but could not get
them vertical to reach us. The ship was firing at us, but it was far
away. And Grantline's search-beam was going full-power, clinging to
the ship to dazzle them.
Snap circled us. As we came back I dropped another bomb. Its silent
puff seemed littered with flying fragments of the two projectors and
the bodies of the men.
We flew swiftly back and got in.
* * * * *
It decided Grantline. For an hour past Snap and I had been urging our
plan to use the gravity platforms. To remain inactive was sure defeat
now. Even if our buildings did not explode--if we thought to huddle in
them, helmeted in the failing air--then Miko could readily ignore us
and proceed with his loading of the treasure under our helpless gaze.
He could do that now with safety--if we refused to sally out--for we
could not fire our weapons through our windows.[1]
[Footnote 1: To fire a projector through the walls or windows would at
once wreck the protective Erentz system. The enemy ship has pressure
portes, constructed for the emission of the weapon-rays. Grantline's
only weapons thus mounted were his search-beam and zed-ray.]
To remain defensive would end inevitably in our defeat. We all knew it
now; it was obvious. The waiting game was Miko's--not ours! And he was
playing it.
The success of our attack upon the distant isolated projectors
heartened us. Yet it was a desperate offensive indeed upon which we
now decided!
We prepared our little expedition at the larger of the exit portes.
Miko's zed-ray was watching all our interior movements. We made a
brave show of activity in our workshop with abandoned ore-carts which
were stored there. We got them out, started to recondition them.
It seemed to fool Miko. His zed-ray clung to the workshop, watching
us. And at the distant porte we gathered the little platforms, the
shields, helmets, bombs, and a few hand-projectors.
There were six platforms--three of us upon each. It left four people
to remain indoors.
* * * * *
I need not describe the emotion with which Snap and I listened to
Venza and Anita pleading to be allowed to accompany us. They urged it
upon Grantline, and we took no part. It was too important a decision.
The treasure--the life or death of all these men--hung now upon the
fate of our venture. Snap and I could not intrude our personal
feelings.
And the girls won. Both were undeniably more skilful at handling the
midget platforms than any of us men. Two of the six platforms could be
guided by them. That was a third of our little force! And of what use
to go out and be defeated, leaving the girls here to meet death almost
immediately afterward?
We gathered at the porte. A last minute change made Grantline order
six of his men to remain guarding the buildings. The instruments--the
Erentz system--all the appliances had to be attended.
It left four platforms, each with three men, with Grantline at the
controls of one of them. And upon the other two of the six Venza rode
with Snap, and I with Anita.
We crouched in the shadows outside the porte. So small an army,
sallying out to bomb this enemy vessel or be killed in the attempt!
Only sixteen of us. And thirty or so brigands.
I envisaged then this tiny Moon-crater, the scene of this battle we
were waging. Struggling humans, desperately trying to kill. Alone here
on this globe. Around us, the wide reaches of Lunar desolation. In all
this world, every human being was gathered here, struggling to kill!
Anita drew me down to the platform. "Ready, Gregg."
The others were rising. We lifted, moved slowly out and away from the
protective shadows of the building.
In a tiny queue the six little platforms sailed out over the valley
toward the brigand ship.