by Earl
There was silence in the chamber. The awful price left the delegates stunned. But heads began nodding.
“You’re right, Kaine,” Kylar said finally. “We can’t shrink from it. Win all or lose all. Eons of future freedom are worth any price.”
“Have I made it clear? Kaine resumed. “The armada to deal with Tharkya, the planet, itself. The rest of the galaxy to clean up the Patrol. If the armada fails, all is lost. The armada’s only chance is this—”
He talked on and on, with every ear bent forward in the screens. Heads nodded. The battle plan was completed.
Kaine stepped back, flushed, half astonished at his own clear-sightedness. He had in one stroke whipped the former vague battle plan into a powerful, aimed thrust.
“Thank the stars for your Tharkyan training,” MacLean said soberly. “They’ve taught you to think in galactic terms, as they have for ages.”
Kylar called for attention.
“Legionnaires! We are ready for attack. But we need a commander-in-chief of the armada, one who—”
A rustle interrupted. A rustle of voices from the thousand television screens. A thousand accents, a thousand minds. But the rustle was of only one repeated name.
Kylar turned.
“Terrance Kaine of Earth! I appoint you, by common consent, the commander-in-chief of our forces. Do you accept?”
Kaine was suddenly voiceless, choked. He couldn’t say it. That he would like nothing more in the universe. But his eyes went to the other room, where Veloa lay broken-bodied. Kylar grasped his hand in understanding.
A low, fervent cheer came from the thousand alien delegates.
Kaine was deadly tired. He needed sleep. He was dimly aware, now, of hands leading him to a bunk. Before his eyes closed, he saw the Dymooran staff leap to microphones. Their low voices hissed into the voice-cups.
“Attention, all worlds! Prepare for attack on Tharkya! Send your ships to the following point, beyond the rim of the galaxy. You are under command of Terrance Kaine of Earth!”
On and on the voices droned. They reached to every corner of the galaxy instantly. Not by mere radio. Radio waves would have taken thousands of years to bridge the stupendous distances. Superradio it was, crackling aerials that hurled forth spacion-chronon waves, annihilating time and distance.
The battle-cry of a galaxy!
But Kaine’s last thoughts were not of the coming engagement that would rock the universe. He pictured a sweet, lovely Dymooran girl, as human as any on far Earth, doomed to a life of physical deformity.
“Veloa!” he murmured. He slept.
IX
“VELOA!” he murmured, under the open stars of space.
It was three days later. The giant flagship was manned by fifty Dymoorans. Its powerful engine flung it smoothly through the empty void. Behind followed three hundred other battleships—the total Dymooran contingent.
A bell rang.
MacLean punched the “on” stud of the desk. “Captain’s office. Yes?”
“Pilot room, sir. Our long-range detectors just spotted a Space Patrol unit, on our course ahead.”
“Shift course,” MacLean instantly barked. “We don’t want any mix-up with the Tharkyans yet. Two galactic points east. Five units of swing. Then shut down the engines and lights. Hep!”
“Ay, sir!”
The flag-ship swung in an arc. The ships followed. A minute later they blinked out of existence, as all lights and engine exhausts vanished. Silently, three hundred dark bulks swung around the Tharkyan Space Patrol.
An hour later, MacLean gave the all-clear signal. Engines resumed. Lights went on.
ZlkZee released his breath. “The third one we skipped by. Don’t suspect a thing. And now there’s no more danger. Look—open space!”
By “open space,” the spider-man meant the void beyond the galaxy. The fleet arrowed out past the last fringes of stars. Before them now stretched only an appalling, starless nothingness. The nearest other galaxy was a million light-years away. No Tharkyan ships patrolled this Siberia of space.
Ten hours later they decelerated for the trysting place of the Legion of Freedom. Faintly, up ahead, could be seen the lights of other ships.
“Many are here, already, from closer sectors,” ZlkZee said. “Ah—the contingent from Klak, my world! Those two hundred web-work ships—see?”
For once, the phlegmatic spider-man was excited. It was the first time Kaine had seen him so.
“Do you want to join them—fight with your own people?” MacLean asked. “I can shift you across. You’re no good anyway.”
ZlkZee calmed. “No. One ship is as good as another. I’ll stay with you, monster!”
“Monster, hmff!” MacLean snorted. “We’d use you on my world to scare little children and haunt haunted houses! All right, you can stay. Spin yourself a web in some corner and hang on when the fighting starts.”
“When it comes to fighting,” ZlkZee retorted indignantly, “I have eight arms. I hang on with four, and fire with four. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, my dear captain!”
Even Kaine had to smile at the bantering the two kept up, hour after hour. ZlkZee usually had the best of it, having been around the galaxy much more than MacLean.
MacLean glared, without a suitable repartee, but then punched the communication board.
“Attention, all contingents! Flagship of the Dymooran unit arriving. Commander Terrance Kaine of Earth aboard. From now on, your orders will come from him.”
Kaine leaned to the microphone.
“Commander Kaine speaking. Each unit report as follows—sector, world, number of ships, number of men, number and calibre of guns.”
For the next twelve hours, the Dymooran staff of recorders were kept busy.
MacLean jerked his head up suddenly, as a deep clear voice reported in familiar accents:
“Sector N-99. Earth. Eleven ships. One thousand men. 315 one-pounders. 22 three-inch guns. Eleven six-inchers. Five space torpedo tubes. One dis-gun. Ready for action, sir!”
“You hear that—it’s Earth!” MacLean yelped. “We’re represented after all!” His voice fell a little. “I wish it was more than eleven ships.”
He looked a little sheepishly at ZlkZee, whose world had sent two hundred.
“Earth has been in galactic affairs only 25 years,” ZlkZee said. “Most of us have known ages of oppression. Eleven ships from Earth, on that scale, represents a bigger proportion than any other world!”
“Thanks, pal,” MacLean muttered, gripping the spider-man’s chitonous arm. He bent to the microphone. “Hello, Earth contingent! Only eleven ships we have, men. But give the Tharkyans hell!”
“Ay, sir, that we will. Eleven kinds of hell, sir!”
IN the following hours, units began arriving in mounting numbers. From every corner of the Milky Way they came, in fifties, hundreds, and sometimes thousands. The ant-people of a world near Betelgeuse came in a cloud of five thousand ships. But they were small, with small guns. The dinosaur-people of sector J-8 sent only twenty-five ships. But their giant cannon could hurl out shells big as houses.
Kaine found himself busier than ever in his life before. How to whip this disjointed horde into an effective fighting force? No ordinary mind could have met the challenge. But a Tharkyan-trained mind could. A mind taught to think and reason in terms of galactic proportions.
“Attention, all ships!” he barked, when the last units had straggled in three days later and been recorded. “Line up in formations of a hundred. The following heavy-gun contingents in Battalion One—”
He read off the list. Then Battalion Two, with lesser guns. And down the line. Obediently, the contingents moved to their allotted positions. All except one.
“Contingent 18 from sector D-82!” MacLean barked. “Get going. You’re holding us up.”
“One moment,” came back in a throaty rumble, from a being Kaine vaguely knew to be a ten-foot gorilla-like race. “We question your authority, Kaine of Earth! Your pu
ny world has been the last to be colonized by the Tharkyans. Why should a man of that world lead us, we others who have an ancient, sacred score to settle with Tharkya? It’s ridiculous. Furthermore, we question your ability. Our contingent should be closer to the front, since we are superior fighters. You have the ant-people in front of us, like flies. They’ll get in our way!”
And then, like a dam bursting, a babble of dissent came from many other contingents. Petty jealousies, resentments, injured pride erupted. Contingents began to move out of line.
“It’s breaking up!” MacLean gasped. “Terry, all our work will go for nothing!”
“I was afraid this might happen,” ZlkZee half groaned. He looked at Kaine. “There is only one thing to do, commander.”
Kaine hesitated, then set his jaw.
“Contingent 18!” he barked. “Move to position, or take the consequences!”
“We refuse!”
And contingent 18 did not move.
Kaine was already whispering orders below deck, to the gunners. A long cannon snout gyrated and froze into position.
“Fire!” Kaine said grimly.
A dis-ray crackled from his ship. Striking the rebel flagship squarely, it rammed through to the other side, reducing all within to smoking atom-dust. The craft broke in half. Gorilla-men spilled out, shrieking, clawing. They died almost instantly in the vacuum of space. In a minute the two silent, dark halves of the shattered ship drifted away, lifeless.
“Any more?” Kaine asked in deadly warning.
Not a sound came back. The contingents that had begun to slip out of place silently went back. This commander was no weakling. He meant business.
“That’s better,” Kaine said tersely. “We’re out to battle our common enemy, Tharkya. Not bicker among ourselves. I’m sorry for what I had to do, contingent 18. Now elect a new flagship and captain, and move to position.”
Contingent 18 obeyed.
“Good work, lad!” MacLean patted his back.
“You did the only one thing that saved us from disaster,” ZlkZee commended.
Kaine wiped sweat from his forehead. “For a minute,” he said weakly, “I thought it was all over.”
He straightened up.
“Attention! The contingents armed with dis-guns line up back of my ship. We are the spearhead of attack—”
Interruption came. Lights twinkled in the distance and rapidly approached. A belated contingent arriving. They reported, while coming up.
“Lakan, of sector P-33 reporting, sir! Original number of ships, 120. Now 97. Lost 23 ships battling a Space Patrol unit that blundered into us. Destroyed all but two of them. They raced away, toward Tharkya!”
“The alarm is out!” ZlkZee cried. “We haven’t a minute to lose!”
“Ready for action!” Kaine yelled into the microphone. “Constant top-acceleration for Tharkya. Advance!”
X
ENGINES whined to life. Pilots manipulated their various strange controls, fitting claws, paws, talons, tentacles, hands, tendrils, and a thousand other varieties of appendages.
The ships leaped toward the galaxy while gun-crews set their weapons for prime action. The great armada thundered through space, at a rate that swiftly surpassed that of laggard light. Into the galaxy it swarmed, arrowing between the mighty suns that lumbered in their eternal orbits.
One hundred million ships. Manning them was a total of ten billion souls, of a million and thirteen different races. The most gigantic army ever assembled, in the history of the galaxy.
Ten billion warriors, fighting for the destiny of countless trillions of subjugated peoples.
Kaine’s Earth-mind almost swam under those stupendous figures. As a caveman’s mind might swim if transported to the 20th century with its inconceivable empires of millions, where he had known only tribes of a dozen or hundred.
But Kaine’s Tharkyan-trained mind was not overwhelmed. Clearly, he saw the whole picture, as on a great stage. Armageddon!
There was no attempt at secrecy now. Before they were half-way, Tharkyan Patrols spied them, and fled to report. Soon after massed units of the Space Patrol winged out, engaging them. But the element of surprise was still there. The enemy had only caught the last final phase of the gigantic attack, and too late to stop it.
“Attention, all ships!” Kaine barked, in a coldly calculating voice. “Do not break formation. Do not cut speed, or veer. Continue for Tharkya. Fire back at enemy ships within range, but do not maneuver from our formation!”
The formation was like a huge, bristling gimlet, boring through space. The Patrol units crunched at it from the side, trying to break it up. Their dis-rays began to stab relentlessly, eating inward. They were far out of range of return fire from the Legion.
Dozens of Legion ships whiffed to nothingness, then hundreds, then thousands. The loss was insignificant, when counted against the total.
“They’ve got a long way to go—millions and millions!” McLean crowed. “We’ll easily last to Tharkya, where the fun begins!”
Enraged, the Tharkyan units now began ranging closer, to sweep their powerful dis-rays over lines of ships. Legionnaires aimed cannon now. Shells peppered back. Tharkyan hulls began to show holes. Here and there a ship darkened, out of action. The Legion was retaliating.
Kaine reduced it all to cold mathematics. The Tharkyans could take them ten-to-one, with their energon-powered super-rays. But the Legion, in turn, outnumbered the Patrol ten-to-one. It came out even, therefore. Thus, a drag-out fight with the Patrol meant little. Tharkya would remain unharmed, with factories that could turn out Patrol ships overnight.
The blow must be struck at Tharkya itself.
The Patrol ships had to be armed with dis-guns—and energon. Tharkya had vast, endless stores of energon, systematically culled from the galaxy for an age.
Energon! It reduced finally to that. If once Tharkya were cut off from its energon! . . .
PATROL ships were at all sides now.
The alarm had gone through the whole galaxy. From every last outpost they swarmed to the battle, at super-speeds. They began to mass at the front of the armada, to stop its mighty plunge for Tharkya.
“Dis-guns ready for action!” Kaine yelled. “Fire!”
And now the strategy of the dis-ray spearhead fulfilled itself. The front ten thousand ships, with a weapon equal to the enemy’s, blasted the way clear. As fast as the Tharkyan formations came, they were whiffed to dust.
And before the surprised enemy could mass itself in effective numbers, the Legion had reached Tharkya.
It plunged into the Dark Nebula that hid Tharkya. The Patrol still harried at the sides and back, but hopelessly. The toll had not been neglible—the armada had been cut to half. But still fifty million ships hurtled through the thinning haze and speared for giant, red Tharkya.
A cheer thundered from the remaining five billion warrior throats. Tharkya lay under them, the home of their overlords of a million years. Every eye gleamed, and every pseudo-hand itched to swing the guns on this hated dictator race.
“Decelerate! Spread formation!” Kaine called out, at the precise moment. “All rear contingents carry out bombing, as prearranged. Good luck!”
The great armada spread fanwise. The outer contingents sped away from the common center. They raced over the surface of Tharkya, in all directions.
Down they swooped, when within the atmosphere. Down, down, screaming and whistling through the air. Then bomb-racks clicked. Black dots hurtled down. Puffs of whites smoke tufted the surface of Tharkya.
For the first time in the history of the Milky Way, Tharkya was being bombed!
“Ah, this is a blessed moment!” ZlkZee breathed. “I wish all my people could see it. Almost a million of your years ago, the Tharkyans came to our world. Subjugated us. Destroyed half our population in the struggle we put up. Then half of the remaining in some program of ‘population stabilizing, saying there were too many of our people for our own good. The murdered souls of
billions of my people must be looking down, on this glorious moment!”
MacLean was hardly less calm.
“Give it to the blue devils, you bombers!” he shrieked. “Bomb the whole wicked planet to ruins!”
“Don’t be a child,” Kaine remonstrated. “Do you realize how big Tharkya is? It would take ten years to bomb down the entire planet-wide city. We must carry through our original plan.”
The plan Kaine had meticulously worked out before the delegates at the council of war.
MacLean nodded, sobering. “It goes back to Hitler, when he was trying to conquer Earth. Paralyze a city by bombing its main centers, its life currents. The rest becomes dead, useless. We have to strike at the heart of Tharkyan power—”
“Which is its energon vault!” ZlkZee said.
“That’s our one chance of real victory,” Kaine murmured. He turned to the microphone. Twenty-five million ships, his first line, were hovering with him, waiting for the bombers to range far and wide. In essence, the bombers were a decoy, to draw the Patrol after them.
“Look at the fools!” MacLean crowed. “Chasing after our bombers just to protect a few buildings and gardens from being blasted. While here, we’ll strike the real blow.”
“Descend!” Kaine cried into the microphone. “Straight down for the energon-vault. It’s a small target, compared to the rest of the city. Dive-bomb, as per previous instructions.” He paused, then resumed in more somber tones. “Good luck, all! If we succeed, we’ll be blown to bits. If we don’t succeed, the Patrol will get us. Descend, Legion. Down with Tharkya!”
THE suicide fleet dipped, into the atmosphere. Down and down it dived, straight for the ramparts of the underground energon-vault. They pulled out of their dives, skimming towers and spires, and dropped their eggs of destruction. Wave after wave they dove, zoomed up, circled, and dove again.
The radium-bombs exploded in a continuous roar. The mighty concrete ramparts began slowly to crumble. It was succeeding!
