If This Goes On Part 13

We lumbered along in approach zigzag. Huxley wandered from comm to plot and back again, calm as a snail, looking over my shoulder, reading despatches casually, watching the progress of the approach on the screens.

The pile of despatches at my elbow grew. The Cherub had fouled her starboard tread; she had dropped out of formation but would rejoin in thirty minutes. Penoyer reported his columns extended and ready to deploy. Because of the acute shortage of command talent, we were using broad-command organization; Penoyer commanded the left wing and his own battlewagon; Huxley was force commander, right wing commander, and skipper of his own flagship.

At 12:32 the televisors went out. The enemy had a.n.a.lyzed our frequency variation pattern, matched us and blown every tube in the circuits. It is theoretically impossible; they did it. At 12:37 radio went out.

Huxley seemed unperturbed. 'Shift to light-phone circuits,' was all he said.

The communications officer had antic.i.p.ated him; our audio circuits were now on infra-red beams, ship to ship. Huxley hung over my shoulder most of the next hour, watching the position plot lines grow. Presently he said, 'I think we will deploy now, John. Some of those pilots aren't any too steady; I think we will give them time to settle down in their positions before anything more happens.'

I pa.s.sed the order and cut my tracker out of circuit for fifteen minutes; it wasn't built for so many variables at such high speeds and there was no sense in overloading it. Nineteen minutes later the last transport had checked in by phone, I made a preliminary set up, threw the starting switch and let the correction data feed in. For a couple of minutes I was very busy balancing data, my hands moving among k.n.o.bs and keys; then the machine was satisfied with its own predictions and I reported, 'Tracking, sir.'

Huxley leaned over my shoulder. The line was a little ragged but I was proud of them-some of those pilots had been freighter jacks not four weeks earlier.

At three a.m. we made the precautionary signal, 'Coming on the range,' and our own turret rumbled as they loaded it.

At 3:31 Huxley gave the command, 'Concentration Plan III, open fire.'

Our own big fellow let go. The first shot shook loose a lot of dust and made my eyes water. The craft rolled back on her treads to the recoil and I nearly fell out of my saddle. I had never ridden one of the big booster guns before and I hadn't expected the long recoil. Our big rifle had secondary firing chambers up the barrel, electronically synchronized with the progress of the sh.e.l.l; it maintained max pressure all the way up and gave a much higher muzzle velocity and striking power. It also gave a bone-shaking recoil. But the second time I was ready for it.

Huxley was at the periscope between shots, trying to observe the effects of our fire. New Jerusalem had answered our fire but did not yet have us ranged. We had the advantage of firing at a stationary target whose range we knew to the meter; on the other hand even a heavy land cruiser could not show the weight of armor that underlay the Palace's ginger-bread.

Huxley turned from the scope and remarked, 'Smoke, John.' I turned to the communications officer. 'Stand by, sensitives; all craft!'

The order never got through. Even as I gave it the comm officer reported loss of contact. But the psychoperator was already busy and I knew the same thing was happening in all the ships; it was normal casualty routine.

Of our nine sensitives, three-the boy and two women-were wide-awakes; the other six were hypnos. The technician hooked the boy first to one in Penoyer's craft. The kid established rapport almost at once and Penoyer got through a report: 'BLANKETED BY SMOKE. HAVE SHIFTED LEFT WING TO PSYCHO. WHAT HOOK-UP? - PENOYER.'.

I answered, 'Pa.s.s down the line.' Doctrine permitted two types of telepathic hook-up: relay, in which a message would be pa.s.sed along until it reached its destination; and command mesh, in which there was direct hook-up from flag to each ship under that flag, plus ship-to-ship for adjacent units. In the first case each sensitive carries just one circuit, that is, is in rapport with just one other telepath; in the second they might have to handle as many as four circuits. I wanted to hold off overloading them as long as possible.

The technician tied the other two wide-awakes into our flanking craft in the battle line, then turned his attention to the hypnos. Four of them required hypodermics; the other two went under in response to suggestion. Shortly we were hooked up with the transports and second-line craft, as well as with the bombers and the rocket-jet spotting the fall of shot. The jet reported visibility zero and complained that he wasn't getting anything intelligible by radar. I told him to stand by; the morning breeze might clear the smoke away presently.

We weren't dependent on him anyway; we knew our positions almost to the inch. We had taken departure from a benchmark and our dead reckoning was checked for the whole battle line every time any skipper identified a map-shown landmark. In addition, the dead reckoners of a tread-driven cruiser are surprisingly accurate; the treads literally measure every yard of ground as they pa.s.s over it and a little differential gadget compares the treads and keeps just as careful track of direction. The smoke did not really bother us and we could keep on firing accurately even if radar failed. On the other hand, if the Palace commander kept us in smoke he himself was entirely dependent on radar.

His radar was apparently working; shot was falling all around us. We hadn't been hit yet but we could feel the concussions when sh.e.l.ls struck near us and some of the reports were not cheerful. Penoyer reported the Martyr hit; the sh.e.l.l had ruptured her starboard engine room. The skipper had tried to cross connect and proceed at half-speed, but the gear train was jammed; she was definitely out of action. The Archangel had overheated her gun. She was in formation but would be harmless until the turret captain got her straightened out.

Huxley ordered them to shift to Formation E, a plan which used changing speeds and apparently random courses-carefully planned to avoid collision between ships, however. It was intended to confuse the fire control of the enemy.

At 4:11 Huxley sent the bombers back to base. We were inside the city now and the walls of the Palace lay just beyond-too close to target for comfort; we didn't want to lose ships to our own bombs.

At 4:17 we were struck. The port upper tread casing was split, the barbette was damaged so that the gun would no longer .train, and the conning tower was cracked along its after surface. The pilot was killed at his controls.

I helped the psychoperator get gas helmets over the heads. of the hypnos. Huxley picked himself up off the floor plates, put on his own helmet, and studied the set-up on my battle tracker, frozen at the instant the sh.e.l.l hit us.

'The Benison should pa.s.s by this point in three minutes,. John. Tell them to proceed dead slow, come along starboard side, and pick us up. Tell Penoyer I am shifting my flag.'

We made the transfer without mishap, Huxley, myself, the psychoperator, and his sensitives. One sensitive was dead, killed by a flying splinter. One went into a deep trance and we could not rouse her. We left her in the disabled battlewagon; she was as safe there as she could be.

I had torn the current plot from my tracker and brought it along. It had the time-predicted plots for Formation E. We would have to struggle along with those, as the tracker could not be moved and was probably beyond casual repair in any case. Huxley studied the chart.

'Shift to full communication mesh, John. I plan to a.s.sault shortly.'

I helped the psychoperator get his circuits straightened out. By dropping the Martyr out entirely and by using 'Pa.s.s down the line' on Penoyer's auxiliaries, we made up for the loss of two sensitives. All carried four circuits now, except the boy who had five, and the. girl with the cough, who was managing six. The psychoperator was worried but there was nothing to do about it.

I turned back to General Huxley. He. had seated himself, and at first I thought he was in deep thought; then I saw that he was unconscious. It was not until I tried to rouse him and failed that I saw the blood seeping down the support column of his chair and wetting floor plates. I moved him gently and found, sticking out from between his ribs near his spine, a steel splinter.

I felt a touch at my elbow, it was the psychoperator. 'Penoyer reports that he will be within a.s.sault radius in four minutes. Requests permission to change formation and asks time of execution.'

Huxley was out. Dead or wounded, he would fight no more this battle. By all rules, command devolved on Penoyer, and I should tell him so at once. But time was pressing hard, it would involve a drastic change of set-up, and we had been forced to send Penoyer into battle with only three sensitives. It was a physical impossibility.

What should I do? Turn the flag over to the skipper of the Benison? I knew the man, stolid, unimaginative, a gunner by disposition. He was not even in his conning tower but had been fighting his ship from the fire control station in the turret. If I called him down here, he would take many minutes to comprehend the situation-and then give the wrong orders.

With Huxley out I had not an ounce of real authority. I was a brevet short-tailed colonel, only days up from major and a legate by rights; I was what I was as Huxley's flunky. Should I turn command over to Penoyer-and lose the battle with proper military protocol? What would Huxley have me do, if he could make the decision?

It seemed to me that I worried that problem for an hour. The chronograph showed thirteen seconds between reception of Penoyer's despatch and my answer: 'Change formation at will. Stand by for execution signal in six minutes.' The order given, I sent word to the forward dressing station to attend to the General.

I shifted the right wing to a.s.sault echelon, then called the transport Sweet Chariot: 'Sub-plan D; leave formation and proceed on duty a.s.signed.' The psychoperator eyed me but transmitted my orders. Sub-plan D called for five hundred light infantry to enter the Palace through the bas.e.m.e.nt of the department store that was connected with the lodge room. From the lodge room they would split into squads and proceed on a.s.signed tasks. All of our shock troops had all the plans of the Palace graven into their brains; these five hundred had had additional drill as to just where they were to go, what they were to do.

Most of them would be killed, but they should be able to create confusion during the a.s.sault. Zeb had trained them and now commanded them.

We were ready. 'All units, stand by to a.s.sault. Right wing, outer flank of right bastion; left wing, outer flank of left bastion. Zigzag emergency full speed until within a.s.sault distance. Deploy for full concentration fire, one salvo, and a.s.sault. Stand by to execute. Acknowledge.'

The acknowledgments were coming in and I was watching my chronometer preparatory to giving the command of execution when the boy sensitive broke off in the middle of a report and shook himself. The technician grabbed the kid's wrist and felt for his pulse; the boy shook him off.

'Somebody new,' he said. 'I don't quite get it.' Then he commenced in a sing-song, 'To commanding general from Lodge Master Peter van Eyck: a.s.sault center bastion with full force. I will create a diversion.'

'Why the center?' I asked.

'It is much more damaged.'

If this were authentic, it was crucially important. But I was suspicious. If Master Peter had been detected, it was a trap. And I didn't see how he, in his position, had been able to set up a sensitive circuit in the midst of battle.

'Give me the word,' I said.

'Nay, you give me.'

'Nay, I will not.'

'I will spell it, or halve it.'

'Spell it, then.'

We did so. I was satisfied. 'Cancel last signal. Heavy cruisers a.s.sault center bastion, left wing to left flank, right wing to right flank. Odd numbered auxiliaries make diversion a.s.saults on right and left bastions. Even numbers remain with transports. Acknowledge.'

Ninteen seconds later I gave the command to execute, then we were off. It was like riding a rocket plane with a dirty, overheated firing chamber. We crashed through walls of masonry, lurched sickeningly on turns, almost overturned when we crashed into the bas.e.m.e.nt of some large demolished building and lumbered out again. It was out of my hands now, up to each skipper.

As we slewed into firing position, I saw the psychoperator peeling back the boy's eyelids. 'I'm afraid he's gone,' he said tonelessly. 'I had to overload him too much on that last hookup.' Two more of the women had collapsed.

Our big gun cut loose for the final salvo; we waited for an interminable period-all of ten seconds. Then we were moving, gathering speed as we rolled. The Benison hit the Palace wall with a blow that I thought would wreck her, but she did not mount. But the pilot had his forward hydraulic jacks down as soon as we hit; her bow reared slowly up. We reached an angle so steep that it seemed she must turn turtle, then the treads took hold, we ground forward and slid through the breach in the wall.

Our gun spoke again, at point-blank range, right into the inner Palace. A thought flashed through my head-this was the exact spot where I had first laid eyes on Judith. I had come full circle.

The Benison was rampaging around, destroying by her very weight. I waited until the last cruiser had had time to enter, then gave the order, 'Transports, a.s.sault.' That done, I called Penoyer, informed him that Huxley was wounded and that he was now in command.

I was all through. I did not even have a job, a battle station. The battle surged around me, but I was not part of it-I, who two minutes ago had been in usurped full command.

I stopped to light a cigarette and wondered what to do with myself. I put it out after one soul-satisfying drag and scrambled up into the fire control tower of the turret and peered out the after slits. A breeze had come up and the smoke was clearing; the transport Jacob's Ladder I could see just pulling out of the breach. Her sides fell away and ranks of infantry sprang out, blasters ready. A sporadic fire met them; some fell but most returned the fire and charged the inner Palace. The Jacob's Ladder cleared the breach and the Ark took her place.

The troops commander in the Ark had orders to take the Prophet alive. I hurried down ladders from the turret, ran down the pa.s.sageway between the engine rooms, and located the escape hatch in the floor plates, clear at the stern of the Benison. Somehow I got it unclamped, swung up the hatch cover, and stuck my head down. I could see men running, out beyond the treads. I drew my blaster, dropped to the ground, and tried to catch up with them, running out the stern between the big treads.

They were men from the Ark, right enough. I attached myself to a platoon and trotted along with them. We swarmed into the inner Palace.

But the battle was over; we encountered no organized resistance. We went on down and down and down and found the Prophet's bombproof. The door was open and he was there.

But we did not arrest him. The Virgins had gotten to him first; he no longer looked imperious. They had left him barely something to identify at an inquest.