The Onslaught from Rigel Part 30

"I hope," remarked Sherman, a couple of days later, "that those La.s.sans don't come out quite yet, now. We've got the ships to meet them now, but the personnel isn't as well trained as I should like. Salsinger nearly smashed up one of the ships yesterday making his landing and one of the wings on another cracked up this morning when Roberts tried to turn too short. These rocket-ships are so fast you need a whole state to handle them in."

"And I," replied Ben Ruby, "hope they come out d.a.m.n soon. As you say, we've got the ships now, but they're not so slow themselves, and with the building methods they have, they can turn out ships faster than we can."

"All the same, I'd like a few days more," Sherman countered. "In this brand of war it isn't how much you've got, but what you've got that counts. Look at all the Australians--half a million men, and the only good they are is to work in factories."

"Can't blame them for not being made of metal like us," said Ben.

"They're doing their best and we wouldn't be here but for them. Grierson is having the shops build us another ten rocket-cruisers, on the chance that we pick up some reinforcements somewhere in the west."

"Good," said Sherman, "and I have another idea. I think we ought to keep at least one monitor on patrol over the La.s.san city all the time.

They're apt to get out and sneak one over on us. She can stay high up, near the edge of the atmosphere. Of course, she can't radio, but she can fire a couple of shots if she sights them coming out, and we can make a static detector that will register the disturbance. Then we can catch them as fast as they come out, when they'll be easiest to attack."

"How about the other La.s.san city out in the Black Hills?" asked Ben.

"Would be bad strategy to try to handle them both at once, wouldn't it,"

said Sherman, "Still, if you think so ..."

CHAPTER XXII

The Great Conflict

It was _Monitor VII_, manned by the Chicagoans, which had the honor of sighting the enemy. Just as the twilight of a bright May day was closing down over the radio men at the Philadelphia airport, the static detector marked an unusual disturbance, then two quick shocks, which must have come from the patrol's bow beam. In quick succession, the other five, standing ready on their starting ramps, took in their crews, and roared up and away in a torrent of explosions at a thousand miles an hour.

Soaring to fifty thousand feet above the earth, the squadron of rocket-ships made its way north, _Monitor II_ in the lead.

"Well, here we go," called Gloria, gaily, from her seat behind the searchlight. "Hope they don't give us the run-around this time."

"They won't have the chance," said Ben. "That is, provided those Chicago boys have sense enough to remember their instructions and let them alone till we all get there. With six of these ships we ought to be able to rough 'em up a little bit."

At a speed of over a thousand miles an hour, thanks to the thinness of the atmosphere through which they were traveling, it was only a few minutes' hop from Philadelphia to the Catskill city of the elephant-men.

Ben had hardly finished speaking before Sherman called from the control seat, "There they are!"

Far beneath, half revealed, half-hidden by the few tiny clouds of fleece that hung at the lower alt.i.tudes, they could see the naked scar in the hills that marked the La.s.san headquarters. Around it floated half a dozen of the huge green b.a.l.l.s they had encountered on the last occasion.

As they swept by, another one, looking like a grape at the immense distance, trundled slowly out from the enormous door, swung to and fro for a second or two and then swam up to join those already in the sky.

_Monitor VII_ was to the north and above them--as she perceived the American fleet she swept down to join the formation, falling into her prearranged place.

"Do we go now?" asked Sherman.

"Not yet," said Ben. "Give them all a chance to get out. The more the merrier. I'd like to finish the job this time. We can't get in that door, and if we did the rocket-ships would be no use to us in those pa.s.sages, and they're the best we've got. Besides they're playing snooty too, and aren't paying a bit of attention to us. I hope they intend to fight it out to a finish this time."

They turned north, giving the La.s.sans time to a.s.semble their fleet.

"What's the arrangement?" asked Gloria. "Do we all go for them at once?"

"No. We dive in first and the rest follow behind, pulling up before they get in range. If anything happens to us, they'll rescue us--if they can.

You see we don't know what they've got any more than they know what we've got, and I thought it would be a good idea to try the first attack with only one ship. In a pinch the rest can get away--if the La.s.sans haven't developed a lot of speed on those green eggs of theirs."

"How many now?" asked Sherman, from the controls, as the squadron swung back southward and the scarred mountain swam over the horizon again.

"Two--five--nine--eleven--oh, I can't count them all," said Gloria, "they keep changing formation so. There's a lot of them and they're coming up toward us, but slowly. They haven't got that blue beam at the base any more, either--you know the one that globe we got after was riding on."

As they approached it was indeed evident that the green globes were rising slowly through the twilight in some kind of loose formation. It was too complex for the American observers to follow in the brief glimpses they were vouchsafed as they swept past at hurricane speed.

There seemed to be dozens of the La.s.san globes; as though they expected to overwhelm opposition by mere force of numbers. Nearer and nearer came the rocket-ships, nearer and nearer loomed the sinister La.s.san globes, betraying no signs of life, silent and ominous.

"Go?" called Sherman from his seat at the controls.

"Go!" said Ben.

The _Monitor II_ dived; and as she dived, Gloria Rutherford switched on the deadly beam of the searchlight which would carry the gravity-beam against their enemies. For a moment it sought the green globes; then caught one fairly. Ben Ruby threw the switch; and down the light beam leaped the terrible stream of the broken atoms like a wave of death.

Leaped--and failed!

For as it struck the green globe, instead of the rending explosion and the succeeding collapse, there came only a bright handful of stars, a coruscating display of white fire that dashed itself around the La.s.san ship like foam on some coast-rock. It reeled backward, driven from its position under the tremendous shock of the sundered atoms, but it remained intact.

"Well, I'm a son-of-a-gun!" declared Sherman, as he put the _Monitor_ into a spiral climb at nine hundred miles an hour to avoid any counter-attack. "If they haven't found a gravity screen! I didn't think it was possible. Goes to show you you never can tell, especially with La.s.sans. Look out folks, here comes the gaff, I'm going to loop!"

For as he spoke the formation of green globes had opened out--swiftly by ordinary standards, though slowly in comparison with the frantic speed of the American rocket-vessel. From half a dozen of them the racking yellow ray of infra-sound leaped forth to seek the audacious ship that had attacked them single-handed. All round her they stabbed the atmosphere, striking the few clouds and driving them apart in a fine spray of rain, but missing the _Monitor_ as she twisted and heaved at frantic speed.

Twenty miles away and high in the air they pulled up to recover themselves.

"And _that_," Sherman went on with his interrupted observation, "explains why they aren't using those blue beams for support any more.

Of course a gravity screen that would work against our beam would work against the gravity of the earth just as well. They must have some way of varying its effect, though. They aren't rising very fast and haven't got much speed."

"Probably the La.s.sans can't stand the acceleration," suggested Murray.

"Probably you're right. They can't have less than one La.s.san in each globe.... Of course, they might control them by radio, with the thought-helmets and have the crews all robots, but that wouldn't be a La.s.san way of doing things. And I doubt if they'd think radio safe, anyhow, even if they know about it, of which I'm not sure. We're shedding any amount of static around, and would play merry h.e.l.l with most any radio. Wish I knew how they worked that gravity screen, though.

I'll bet a boat-load of Monitors against a thought-helmet that it's magnetic."

"Wish we had some way to signal the rest of the fleet," said Ben, as they swung into their position at the head of the formation again. "I don't want them pushing in there with the gravity-beam if it isn't going to do any good."

Murray laughed. "They'll find it out soon enough. I think we've got plenty speed to beat those infra-sound rays, too. If that's as strong as they come, we've got 'em licked."

"Don't crow yet, boy friend," said Gloria. "You don't know what those babies have up their sleeves--excuse me, their trunks."

As the American fleet formed for a ma.s.s attack, the La.s.san globes had been rising, and now they were a bare five thousand feet below the rocket-cruisers, swinging along at a height of 25,000 feet above the earth in the last rays of the setting sun. As the green globes rose they took their places in a formation like an enormous crescent, the ends of which were extended as each new globe came up to join it.

"Looks like they want to get us in the middle and pop us from all directions at once," observed Sherman. "Well, here goes. Pick the end of the line; that's our best chance. How's your potential, Gloria?"

"O. K., chief," she answered. "Lightning this time?"

He nodded. The rockets of the _Monitor II_ roared; its prow dipped forward, and at an incredible speed it swept down on the line of La.s.san warships, followed by the rest of the American fleet. But it was no surprise this time. As the monitors plunged in, from every green globe that could bring them to bear, the long yellow rays shot forth. Right through them the _Monitor II_ plunged; the grate of it, even through their double coating of armor and the vacuum chambers, set their teeth on edge; then the rocket-ship was pointing directly down at one of the La.s.sans and Gloria snapped the key that released the artificial lightning.

A jagged beam of flame, intenser than the hottest furnace, leaped through the air, struck the green globe, and sought the earth in a thousand tiny rivulets of light. For just a second the globe seemed unharmed; then slowly, and almost majestically, it began to dissolve in mid-air, spouting flames at every pore. Fully ten miles down and beyond, the _Monitor_ turned again, and not till then did the sound of the explosion reach them, a terrific, rending thunder-clap.

"See that?" cried Sherman. "That formation of theirs isn't so dumb.