_The Battle in the Crater_
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 now 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 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. We were almost over
the ship. An added glow down there must have warned Grantline that a
shot was coming. The tiny red light flared bright on his platform.
I hissed 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 seem 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 little explosive globe-bomb. Our
search-light ray at the camp, answering Grantline's signal, shot down
and bathed the 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 where we had been a moment 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 could see its
blue-sizzling fuse as it fell. I saw the others also dropping from our
nearby platforms. The explosions from them merged in a confusion of
the white glare--and a cloud of black light-mist as the brigands out
on the rocks used their occulting 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
search-ray. 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's 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 space-ship, 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 little
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-angles 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 I heard nothing. 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; my head roared
with it. Spots danced before my closed eyes. Then not enough oxygen. I
was dully smothering....
Then the bolt was gone. I found us soaring upward, horribly tilted. I
shifted over.
"Anita! Anita, dear!"
"Yes. Gregg. All right."
* * * * *
The melee went on. The brigand ship and all its vicinity was enveloped
in darkness-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 search-light 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 did not mean that--I didn't see it."
Almost a collision.
"Oh, 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 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.
We swooped. But not too low! Down in the darkness-mist we would
immediately have lost direction, and crashed.
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 occasionally 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 our explosions, enveloped the enemy. Our camp
search-light 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 there 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! Dear God....
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.
And now I saw why probably we had never yet hit the ship.
Its outline was revealed. "Now, Gregg--can you fling it from here?"
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 would have 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."
"Yes."
Grantline's signal-light was summoning us from the attack. He was a
thousand or two thousand feet above.
I was suddenly shocked with horror. The search-ray from our camp
abruptly 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 thoughts 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 of his men to attack our almost abandoned 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 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
small 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.
"Anita, if we can get down on the rocks somewhere near the ship, and
creep up on it unobserved in that blackness...."
* * * * *
I might be able to open its 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.
Then we landed, left the platform.
"Let me go first, Anita."
I held a bullet projector. With slow, cautious leaps, we advanced.
Anita was behind me. I had wanted to leave her with the platform, but
she would not stay. And to be with me seemed at least equally safe.
The rocks were deserted. I thought there was very little chance that
any of the enemy would lurk here. We clambered over the pitted,
scarred surface. The higher crags, etched with Earthlight, stood like
sentinels in the gloom.
The brigand ship with its surrounding darkness was not far from us.
Then we entered the cloud.
No one was out here. We passed the wreckage of broken projectors, and
gruesome, shattered human forms.
We prowled closer. The hull of the ship loomed ahead of us. All dark.
We came at last close against the sleek metal hull-side, slid along it
toward where I was sure the manual-porte was located.
Abruptly I realized that Anita was not behind me! Then I saw her at a
little distance, struggling in the grip of a giant helmeted figure!
The brigand lifted her--turned, and, carrying her, ran the other way!
I did not dare fire. I bounded after them along the hull-side, around
under the curve of the pointed bow, down along the other side.
I had mistaken the hull-porte location. It was here. The running,
bounding figure reached it, slid the panel. I was only fifty feet
away--not much more than a single leap. I saw Anita being shoved into
the pressure lock. The Martian flung himself after her.
I fired at him, but missed. I came with a rush. And as I reached the
porte it slid closed in my face, barring me!