by Earl
The Solarian Empire had begun its retaliation. It was making its first payment of the heavy debt it owed to the people of CX-88.
Three Earth hours later Commander Albermarle called a halt and looked downward through a telescope, as they drifted lazily over the planet. Toom’s deep voice burst into the air. “That will teach them a lesson. But there are many more planets. Let us get to the next one.”
“That is all we can do, Toom—kill them off as fast as we can to make up for the wholesale murdering of the Blue Beam. They will yet come to their knees before us.”
As they sped vengefully to the next planet, a call came from the Titan Astronomers.
“We are unable to trace the Blue Beam definitely to any one planet of CX-88. Our instruments are not delicate enough to reach across the 188 light-years of space accurately.” Commander Albermarle sighed in resignation.
“Then we will continue destroying the enemy civilization. Sooner or later they must come to terms.”
“Only then it may be too late,” added Xixxus softly, bitterly, thinking of his decimated people.
Four more planets were striped with the devastation of the disintegrator rays in the same way as the first. The gunners almost fought over the privilege of handling the projectors, they were wild as news began to come in from the Empire that Tellurians were already feeling the effects of the Blue Beam, and that the Empire was tottering from its high seat of unity. A message that tore the heart-strings of the warriors came from the Solar Council:
“The Blue Beam, pressing its poisoned finger on Earth, the brain of the Empire, is rapidly bringing about complete collapse. Already half-crazed citizens are storming the subposts of the Council and asking that something be done, although, as a Higher Spirit knows, there is nothing we can do further than we have done. Ships are leaving the Solar System, bound for other stars, bearing hundreds, sometimes thousands of fear-crazed people. The Empire can yet be saved, Commander Albermarle, but the Blue Beam must be stopped before many more Earth days pass or it is the end!”
Commander Albermarle, suddenly old and weary, sent a message back:
“Courage, members of the Solar Council. We are systematically razing each planet of CX-88 to the ground. They will surrender soon.”
Then with terse commands, Albermarle sent the ships to the sixth planet to continue the destruction. But here they met opposition.
A vast fleet of the black ships of the enemy, far larger than the other fleet that had been routed, came to meet them. Unhesitatingly, the Solarian ships plowed through them hurling lightning bolts, disintegrator rays, and repulsion rays in a steady stream. In the face of their wall-like front, the Solarian pilots out-maneuvered them and took up the rapid revolution about the doomed planet, cutting a wide swath of destruction across its face. As soon as they slowed up, the black ships again darted at them.
“We will bring them to their knees!” exclaimed Albermarle. “To the next planet!”
But here something untoward happened. The Solarian ships had worked from the outermost planet to one of its three planetary systems. Accordingly, they were now quite close to the central sun and were almost completely surrounded by other planets further out.
As the two spherical ships began to build up speed around the seventh planet, a soft red beam shot upward from it. Then simultaneously, two other red beams stabbed to them from planets that formed the angles of a triangle with the seventh planet. Immediately their velocity dropped to zero and they became locked into space, held by the three red beams.
Uaaii’s metallic voice resounded in Albermarle’s ears.
“They have it! That is one of the two forms of energy that can affect our ships! Commander Albermarle, if we stay here we are doomed, for they will lock us tightly into space here and bombard us at their leisure. I think we can break away from three red beams, but if another is aligned on us, we may be completely stalled!”
Albermarle spoke into his chest-phone.
“Pilot room! Break away with full power and head for outer space!”
There came a jerk, and tremors ran through the ship. For a moment there was no motion as the powerful engines strained against the binding force of the three red beams.
Then Toom’s voice resounded anxiously.
“There is a fourth red beam just flicked on! They are swinging it about, trying to center it on us! We are lost—here it comes!”
CHAPTER IV
STRATEGY AND MARTYRDOM
BUT at the same moment that the fourth red beam neared the two straining ships, the tug of war ended. With a last wrench the Solarian ships broke away from the three red beams and dashed to safety away from the sun, CX-88.
“Just in time,” boomed the Jovian’s voice from the other ship. His hair had been standing up straight in excitement. Now it began to fall to normal.
“Now that we knew they have the binding energy of the two rays that these ships are not insulated against,” said Uaaii, “perhaps they have also the other force which can break down our screens and leave us open prey to their rays.”
“It is a fearful possibility,” returned Albermarle. “We shall have to watch our step more carefully from now on. It is dangerous to let our ships be surrounded by several planets. These people are past masters of long range beams of all sorts.”
“And now,” he continued, “we must debate our next move. We can out-battle and out-maneuver their ships, but they have the added advantage of ground projectors on their planets. If we continue the work of destruction we began, sooner or later they will lock us with their red beams, and hold us there for all eternity if they cannot destroy us.”
“I think it advisable to attempt to arbitrate with them,” said Uaaii.
“Surely with the utter ferocity they show in battle, and the abominable use of the Blue Beam, we cannot expect them to listen to peace talk,” boomed the Jovian from beside Uaaii.
“Nevertheless,” said Albermarle. “We shall try.”
An hour later the radio room succeeded in contacting the enemy by the use of a thought translator on a powerful wave.
“Who calls?” came the mechanical tones of the thought translator.
“Siglo Albermarle, Commander of the Warships of the Solarian Empire, which you have devastated with your Blue Beam.”
“You are suing for peace?”
“We will arbitrate for peace,” corrected Albermarle.
“Know this then, Solarians. We are the rulers of six planetary systems which we have subjugated by means of our Blue Beam. We saw your system and coveted it, for it is very like our own, sun, planets and all. You have dared to resist, sending ships to attempt to destroy us. You have been successful in a small way, but know this—that we are arising in our might. We will soon crush you to dust. Take the better course. Surrender your ships and we will let you live, only as slaves however. What is your answer?”
“Our answer is that we will continue to raze your planets till there is not a soul living. Beware, senders of the Blue Beam. You are doomed.”
Hardly had Albermarle finished than another voice broke in. It was the head scientist.
“Commander Albermarle! We traced that wave. It came from the nearest planet to the sun of the largest system of twenty-three planets. We notice also that due to its peculiar rotation and revolution, it always presents the same face to our Empire! It is highly probable that the Blue Beam is therefore projected from that planet for the sake of convenience!”
Toom and Uaaii, in the television screen, looked at Albermarle and Xixxus in dawning hope.
“If that is so, then we can accomplish our aim in one stroke,” said Toom.
“But remember,” cautioned Uaaii, “that the planet mentioned is nearest the sun so that we would be going into the thick of the enemy. Those red beams are to be reckoned with.”
After further discussion, which was clipped short by a poignant message of woe from home, it was decided to stake their lives on the chance of getting to the projector.
> Back into space went the two ships to gather momentum for a mad dash to the heart of the planetary system of CX-88. Then at lightning speed they dashed full tilt toward the sun. Planet after planet was passed and red beams flickered all about them, chilling their hearts. If ever four of them simultaneously touched the two ships, it would be the end. Fleets of black ships leaped after them only to be sadly outdistanced. Nearer and nearer loomed the first planet, a gigantic body larger than Jupiter.
THEN Albermarle drew in his breath. Before them, as far as the eye could reach, loomed a myriad legion of black ships, so close to each other as to be touching. No ray came from them, they moved not a bit. They had but one purpose—to act as a wall between the planet and the invaders.
Albermarle knew he could not crash through. They were perhaps ten or twenty deep. His diamond hulls would not stand such a terrific smash. He gave the order to swing to the other side.
But in order to do this, the ships had to slow up considerably. Immediately a dozen searching red beams followed them, lighting their hulls momentarily as they flickered on and oft. It was a race between the Solarian ships seeking to break the blockade and the red beams aligning on them.
Suddenly there was a terrific jolt.
Commander Albermarle wasted no time.
“Break away to outer space!”
Valiantly the engines strained, fighting the red beams’ locking effect.
Then Toom’s horrified voice boomed:
“The screens! They have the destroying force for the screens! They are weakening and breaking fast!”
Commander Albermarle gave an order then that startled the engineers in the engine room.
“Feed some of the etheric energy into the engines!”
“It may burn them out,” the response came back anxiously.
“We’ll have to take that chance,” said Albermarle.
A sudden tremor ran through the two ships. Then they broke away from the red beams just as a few of the yellow rays worked through the weakened screens and fused little dabs of the hull.
Once again out in open space, the two warships came to a halt.
Albermarle presented a grave face to Uaaii and Toom.
“We know now definitely that on that first planet rests the projector, because they protected it so completely.”
“Our task becomes infinitely greater now that they have found the two energies that can destroy our ships,” said Uaaii. His mechanical voice betrayed no emotion, but his curious semi-crystalline face showed a perturbed state of mind.
A message from the Empire, yet further depressed them. It stated that Earth people were dying by the millions and that the Solar Council had but the sheerest thread of control over the formerly united worlds. They had become belligerent and intractable, each trying to save its own people, even at the expense of others.
But these dissensions of the Empire had no counterpart in the warships. Here Martian and Venerian, Uranian and Mercurian, had but one common goal—one aim—to vanquish the enemy. It tore their hearts to hear of those things from home, but it altered not one whit their cooperation and fellowship.
Commander Albermarle called a Council of War in which all participated. The facts were gone over relative to the enemy and the projector and suggestions were asked for. After much unproductive discussion, Toom raised his great voice:
“There is yet one way to destroy the projector on planet one. If once a gap in the enemy ships that wall off the planet from us can be made, our ships could get through. Commander Albermarle, there is one way to do that. I will smash this ship directly upon them, thus opening the way for your ship!”
A murmur ran through the room, alike from those present and from television images.
“But that will mean your death and the death of your companions,” said Albermarle slowly.
“That it will,” agreed Toom. “But I am willing to die for the Empire!”
He turned to face the rest of his crew.
“As for the rest, they can be transferred to the other ship. I will guide it myself.”
But a thunderous shout came from his crew.
“We will follow you, Toom, for the glory and safety of the Empire!”
Uaaii’s mechanical voice was heard above the others.
The two ships hovered in space for an hour, filling their accumulators to capacity with the etheric energy. Then they leaped downward to the first planet, Toom’s ship in the lead.
WITH frightful velocity they streamed past the planets, mocking the beams of red and yellow that lamely tried to center on them. Once again they neared the massed ships that hid the face of the planet from the invaders. Velocity unabated, the foremost of the Solarian craft shot downward, while the second ship slowed somewhat to await the crash.
A flaming jewel of brilliant scintillation, Toom’s ship smashed into the ranks of the enemy and plowed through them invincibly and irresistibly, opening a gaping hole.
Albermarle put a hand over his eyes as he saw the glowing hot ship dip groundward, a jagged edged, broken shell. Then he sprang into action. At his orders the remaining Solarian ship streamed through the hole before the enemy could fill the gap, and raced madly to the portion of the planet facing the distant Solarian Empire. From high above it they commanded an extended view of the planet’s surface. “There it is!” cried Xixxus.
The housing for the projector was a truly gigantic structure, immensely high and wide. From its roof through a hole extended a titanic metal tube. All around it the atmosphere sparkled and glinted from the by-products of its terrific energies. The Blue Beam was invisible here but one and all the Solarians hurled curses upon it.
But Albermarle knew that they must act fast. Already red and yellow beams were flicking about them as they neared the structure. And the fleets of black ships above descended upon them with a shower of rays and bombs.
Using the stored etheric energies, the disintegrators poured down their withering breath. With a grinding and crashing that echoed even through the diamond hull of the warship, the projector housing collapsed.
“Vengeance!” screamed Albermarle flinging his arms aloft. “We have done our work. The Blue Beam of Pestilence is no more! Now, my faithful warriors, let us fight to the end, for there is no escape from the fleets above us!”
But a mechanical voice startled him by saying:
“There is no death for us, Commander Albermarle. Look—the black ships are falling! That building evidently housed not only the Blue Beam projector but also the power which runs their ships!”
True it was. As if the sky were falling, all the black ships gyrated downward, completely unpowered, to smash on the ground, piling up in great heaps. A number of the falling ships struck the hull of the Solarian ship, but with slight effect.
The gunners, lacking anything to do, now that the enemy ships were gone, crowded to the different ports and gazed at the picture of heaped up debris that covered the ground almost completely. Of the projector there remained nothing. It had been disintegrated to a mist that yet swirled in the air.
One and all they looked to Albermarle as he spoke:
“Let us silently honor the heroism of our fellow warriors, who gave their lives gladly, that we and our peoples might live on!”
For a long minute there was silence in homage to the martyrs.
Then a murmur of joy ran through the Solarians. The blight of the Blue Beam was gone! Heartening news came from the distant Empire. Already the people had quieted down coincident with the disappearance of the beam, and the Council was already taking steps to rebuild the unity of the Empire which had been badly shaken.
Then Xixxus spoke to Albermarle:
“Now that we have the opportunity, I suggest wiping out the enemy altogether. Every vestige of their civilization should be destroyed for did they not boast that they held in thralldom six other planetary systems? They are tyrants. They deserve death and extinction.”
But before Albermarle could answer, the radio room bur
st in excitedly.
“Commander Albermarle! There is a call here from some unknown party!”
“Who is calling?” asked Albermarle as he was connected to the voice.
“We are the Gulgian Empire, subject to the Star of Fifty-Six Planets. We have followed the progress of your battle with them through our instruments. We are now instituting a revolt against our tyrannical masters who conquered us with the Blue Beam long ago. They enslaved us but now we are revolting and killing them here in our planetary system. You have completely destroyed the Blue Beam projector?”
“Every vestige of it,” assured Albermarle.
“Then all is well,” came from the ether. “You see, we never dared revolt before because of that constant threat of the Blue Beam. Now that it is gone we will finally lift the heavy yoke!”
After that a series of calls came from each of the other five subjugated empires, expressing the same joy that the Gulgian had.
“We will go back to our own sun,” said Albermarle to Xixxus. “I think we can safely leave the rest in the hands of these other peoples who have been under the subjugation of CX-88 for ages, the Higher Spirit alone knows how many Sikka.”
When the lone warship reached Earth, a tremendous ovation was given to Albermarle, but he waved a hand and said:
“Citizens of the Solarian Empire. You owe everything to the crew of the other ship and to Toom V-3-X-44 of Jupiter and Uaaii-23 of Venus. Honor them as unselfish martyrs for the rest of your days.”
And Siglo Albermarle was Supreme Head of the Solar Council for many Sikka after that.
THE END
[1] NOTE—the Sikka, time standard of the solar system, was eleven years and three months of earth time. The new time system replaced all local systems of the different worlds in 2556 A.D. Therefore the first eleven years and three months of time after 2556 A.D. became the Sikka One of the solar system. However, each of the worlds still retained and often used their own time-hallowed systems of computing the passage of time. The Sikka was based on the sun-spot cycle of the central luminary.
