Chapter XIX
THE BATTLE OF EARTH
It had been an anxious hour for the forces of the Solar System.
They were in the last fine stages of Earth's defense when the generalstaff received notice that a radio message of tremendous power hadpenetrated the ray screen, with advice for them. It was signed "Arcot."
"Bringing new weapon. Draw all ships within the atmosphere when I startaction, and drive Thessians back into space. Retire as soon as adistance of ten thousand miles is reached. I will then handle thefleet," was the message.
"Gentlemen: We are losing. The move suggested would be eminently poortactics unless we are sure of being able to drive them. If we don't, weare lost in any event. I trust Arcot. How vote you?" asked GeneralHetsar Sthel.
The message was relayed to the ships. Scarcely a moment after themessage had been relayed, a tremendous battleship appeared in space,just beyond the battle. It shot forward, and planted itself directly inthe midst of the battle, brushing aside two huge Thessians in itsprogress. The Thessian ships bounced off its sides, and reeled away. Itlay waiting, making no move. All the Thessian ships above poured thefull concentration of their moleculars into its tremendous bulk. Adiffused glow of opalescence ran over every ship--save the giant. Themoleculars were being reflected from its sides, and their diffusedenergy attacked the very ships that were sending them!
A fort moved up, and the deadly beam of destruction reached out,luminous even in space.
"Now," muttered Morey, "we shall see what cosmium will stand."
A huge spot on the side of the ship had become incandescent. A vapor, astrange puff of smokiness exploded from it, and disappeared instantly.Another came and faster and faster they followed each other. The cosmiumwas disintegrating under the ray, but very slowly, breaking first intogaseous cosmic rays, then free, and spreading.
"We will not fight," muttered Morey happily as he saw Arcot shift in hisseat.
Arcot picked the moleculars. They reached out, touched the heavy reluxof the fort, and it exploded into opalescence that was hazily white, thecolors shifted so quickly. A screen sprang into being, and the ray waschopped off. The screen was a mass of darting flames as energies ofstupendous magnitude clashed.
Arcot used a bit more of his inconceivable power. The ray struck thescreen, and it flashed once--then died into blackness. The fort suddenlycrumpled in like a dented can, and rolled clumsily away. The other fortwas near now, and started an attack of its own. Arcot chose theartificial matter this time. He was not watching the many attackingships.
The great ship careened suddenly, fell over heavily to one side."Foolish of me," said Arcot. "They tried crashing us."
A mass of crumpled, broken relux and lux surrounded by a haze of gaslying against a slight scratch on the great sides, told the story. Eightinches of cosmium does not give way.
Yet another ship tried it. But it stopped several feet away from thereal wall of the ship. It struck a wall even more unyielding--artificialmatter.
But now Arcot was using this major weapon--artificial matter. Ship aftership, whether fleeing or attacking, was surrounded suddenly by a greatsphere of it, a sudden terrific blaze of energy as the sphere struck theray shield, the control forces now backed by the energy of all themillions of stars of space shattered it in an instant. Then came theinexorable crush of the artificial matter, and a ball of matter aloneremained.
But the pressing disc of the battle-front which had been lowering onChicago, greatest of Earth's metropolises, was lifted. This disc-frontwas staggering back now as Arcot's mighty ship weakened its strength,and destroyed its morale, under the steady drive of the now hopefulSolarians.
The other gigantic fort moved up now, with twenty of the largestbattleships. The fort turned loose its destructive ray--and Arcot triedhis new "magnet." It was not a true magnet, but a transformed spacefield, a field created by the energy of all the universe.
The fort was gigantic. Even Arcot's mighty ship was a small thing besideit, but suddenly it seemed warped and twisted as space curved visibly ina magnetic field of such terrific intensity as to be immeasurable.
Arcot's armory was tested and found not wanting.
Suddenly every Thessian ship in sight ceased to exist. They disappeared.Instantly Arcot threw on all time power, and darted toward Venus. TheThessians were already nearing the planet, and no possible rays couldovertake them. An instantaneous touch of the space control, and themighty ship was within hundreds of miles of the atmosphere.
Space twisted about them, reeled, and was firm. The Thessian fleet wasbefore them in a moment, visible now as they slowed to normal speed.Startled, no doubt, to find before them the ship they had fled, theycharged on for a space. Then, as though by some magic, they stopped andexploded in gouts of light.
When space had twisted, seconds before, it was because Arcot had drawnon the enormous power of space to an extent that had been appreciableeven to it--ten sols. That was forty million tons of matter a second,and for a hundredth part of a second it had flowed. Before them, in avast plane, had been created an infinitesimally thin film of artificialmatter, four hundred thousand tons of it, and into this invisible,infinitely hard barrier, the Thessian fleet had rammed. And it was gone.
"I think," said Arcot softly, as he took off his headpiece, "that thebeginning of the end is in sight."
"And I," said Morey, "think it is now out of sight. Half a dozen shipsstopped. And they are gone now, to warn the others."
"What warning? What can they tell? Only that their ships were destroyedby something they couldn't see." Arcot smiled. "I'm going home."
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