It went by them to the east, looming in the sky, so big it looked close even though two miles away. It was ragged and patched and dented, evidences of former combat on its discolored hide. A tense Jonnie clocked it at about three hundred miles an hour. A battle plane had fired just behind it. Bazooka missiles hit the plane, exploded in two flares of light. It continued sedately on its way, following the drone. As it passed over them he saw it was a different type of battle plane. The Psychlo numbers “32” were on its side and then the smoke logos of the Psychlos. An escort?
The heavy roars beat at the earth.
When they had gone, Terl said, “Why not admit it, animal? You're licked.
When the Psychlos counterattack from home planet, you'll already be gone. So why not toss that gun over here and we can make a deal?”
Jonnie ignored him. He was carefully tracking the compass course of the drone relating it to the afternoon sun. He watched it as long as he could as it droned away to the northeast. It was not turning further. Be calm, he told himself. Don't panic.
"Where's it going first?” he said to Terl. A battle plane could do two thousand miles an hour. You can catch it. Be calm.
“Throw the gun over and I’ll tell you all about it,” said Terl.
Terl's motions alarmed Pattie. “Don't believe anything he says,” she pleaded. "He promised us food and didn't bring it. He even made out to us two or three times that you were dead!”
“You'll tell me about it,” said Jonnie, “or I’ll start shooting off your feet.” He aimed his gun.
“Do it!” said Pattie. “He's a nasty old brute! A devil!”
Jonnie was glancing in the direction Chrissie had gone. She was taking an awful long time coming back. He couldn't leave the girls out here alone and certainly not with Terl alive. Be calm, he told himself. You can catch up with it.
“All right,” said Terl as though resigned. "I’ll give you the places it's going.”
"In proper order,” said Jonnie, raising the gun suggestively.
“You'd get a kick out of shooting me up, wouldn't you?” said Terl.
“I don't get any enjoyment out of hurting things the way-'
“That's because you're a rat brain,” laughed Terl.
All this Psychlo talk between Jonnie and Terl was making Pattie very nervous. “Don't listen to him, Jonnie, just shoot him,” she demanded, grabbing Jonnie's gun arm.
“All right,” said Terl. “It’s first target is the bottom of Africa. The next is China. The next is Russia. Then it is preset to fly to Italy and then right here.”
Good, thought Jonnie. He didn't mention Scotland. It 's heading over the Arctic on that course. Scotland. That's its first target. And it would be because the Psychlos couldn't get up there, or thought they couldn't. Thank you, Terl.
“Good,” he said aloud. “For information received, you live a while longer.” It would take it seventeen hours to get to Scotland. Look calm. You can catch it.
Chrissie was coming down. They had been hidden by a dip in the plains. The horse was at a walk. And he saw why as she came near.
It was Thor. She was holding him upright in front of her on the horse.
She had removed her buckskin jacket and used it for bandages. Thor's antiradiation suit was stained with blood around the left shoulder. She had torn it away there and used buckskin and grass to staunch the blood flow. Thor's left arm was broken, bound in rough sticks for splints. It was he who had been shot out of the sky when he was using the jet pack.
With Chrissie's help Thor slid off the horse. He was gray from blood loss and stood unsteadily. He looked at Jonnie ruefully. "I’m sorry, Jonnie."
“It was my fault, not yours,” said Jonnie. “Ease him down on that rock, Chrissie."
Thor looked at Terl. He had seen the monster close up only a couple of times. Thor was wearing a .457 caliber Smith and Wesson revolver from the old base arsenal loaded with radiation bullets. He suddenly recognized Terl and grabbed for his gun to shoot him.
“No, no,” said Jonnie. “Keep the gun drawn and train it on him and shoot him the moment he looks like he's going to move, particularly his hands. Can you sit there okay?”
Thor was about fifty feet from Terl. He eased down further and got the gun trained on Terl.
“Now, Terl," said Jonnie, “that gun he is holding can put a hole in you a horse could dive through. It has special explosive bullets, worse than your own blast gun. Got it?” Be calm in front of these people. You can catch up with it.
He turned to Pattie. He gave her the huge blast pistol to hold. He showed her where the trigger was and she determinedly walked back of a rock so she could support the gun with it.
“I point it like this?”
“And keep it on him.” You have time, he told himself. Do a good job here.
“Why not kill him?” said Thor. “He leaks information,” said Jonnie.
Terl couldn't understand what they were saying but he got their drift.
Jonnie took out a knife and, keeping out of the line of possible fire, made Terl swivel around. He inserted the knife at Terl's collar and cut the cloth down the back. He went around front, watching Terl's eyes for a telltale clench signaling action and pulled the coat sleeves off. He ripped the cloth down the side of each of Terl's legs. He darted a shallow stab at Terl when he sought to spring. Terl subsided. Jonnie got Terl's boots and pants off. He took his watch. He took his cap. The only thing Terl had left was his breathe-mask and Jonnie even took the emergency vials off that. Terl glared.
There he sat, his fur matted with sweat, his claws twitching to rake Jonnie.
Jonnie took the belt and made Terl put his paws behind him and cinched the belt as tight as he could around the wrists. Then he took Old Pork's bridle and tied the wrists and belt and then passed the rope under the mask tube. He cinched it up. If Terl tried to wrestle his wrists loose he would choke himself. Do a good job, Jonnie told himself. Don't panic. In a battle plane you can catch the drone.
He had been working very fast. He now stepped away from Terl and quickly went through the clothes. Sure enough, Terl had two more weapons secreted. A knife and a second assassin gun.
Jonnie fired a round with the assassin gun. It was silent. The bush he aimed at began to burn. He gave the light gun to Pattie and took the belt gun back.
“Let me shoot him now,” said Pattie.
Thor said to Terl, in Psychlo, “The little girl over there is begging to shoot you.”
"I’ll be quiet here,” said Terl.
“Don't go near him. Light a fire from that wreck over here to the side, Chrissie, so that Thor stays warm and you can see this area.” He turned to Thor. “Who was with you?”
"Glencannon," said Thor. “He's over there in the hills somewhere. I think he tried to get closer to the base. I tried to reach him on this mine radio twice. He's got one but he doesn't answer. They've only a five-mile range.” He looked curious. “Where are you going?”
At that moment there was an explosion flash at the compound. A battle plane had come out of the hangar and apparently been hit with a bazooka. It soared in a flame ball and crashed at the sound of the bazooka and then the plane explosion reached them. A second battle plane came out and met the same fate.
“See?” said Jonnie. "I’ll send back a mine car for you.” Be calm. At two thousand miles an hour you can catch that drone.
The girls looked numbly at Jonnie.
But what could he do? He had meant to send them to the Academy base, but Thor was in no shape to travel at all. Why not kill Terl? No, that would solve nothing. Sound calm to these people. The speed of the drone was three hundred two miles an hour, he remembered from the messages he had taken from the hand of a president a thousand years dead. A battle plane could go hypersonic at two thousand miles an hour. Even if it were halfway to Scotland, he could catch it hours before it arrived.
He swung up on Dancer. The base was about twenty miles away. Make it in an hour or so of hard riding.
Jonnie looked at him. He raised his hand in farewell to the girls and Thor and thumped a heel into Dancer, and she streaked off through the declining sunlight.
Ahead of him pulsed and flickered the battle at the compound. He had wasted time. He could not have done anything else. Be calm, he told himself. Don't panic. A battle plane could catch that drone.
As he raced across the plain, he put out of his mind a thought that kept crowding in. Not all the armed forces of the United States in its days of power had been able to do anything at all to that gas drone. Not with planes, missiles, atomic bombs, or even suicide crashes.
You have time. You can catch up with it. Don't panic.
Part XIII
Chapter 1
One thing at a time, Jonnie told himself. Do each thing properly. Each one as it comes up and each one in its turn. He had read that in a book from the man-library. He had been looking for cures for radiation and he found some. And he'd also found a book about how to handle confusion. It came from too many things at once. And that was certainly happening now! The drone, the possibility of a Psychlo counterattack, the outcome of the compound battle still in question. No reports yet of the attacks on other minesites. One could easily get confused, make a mistake, even panic. Stay calm. One thing at a time.
Dancer had been racing flat-out southward. That was not the right thing to do. He could founder her. He began to alternate a trot with a run. She was breathing better. The light was failing. Something as silly as a tripped horse could wreck everything. Trot, run, trot, run. Twenty miles. They would make it.
He had a mine radio in his pocket, small by Psychlo standards. At ten miles he began to call Glencannon, Thor's pilot. Jonnie spoke into the mike as he rode.
At about eleven miles, Glencannon's voice came back. “Is that you, MacTyler?" The voice sounded a bit weak.
“Can you see a running horse from where you are?” said Jonnie.
There was a long pause. Then, “Yes, you're about three miles northeast of me. You got Terl?"
“Yes, but he's all tied up at the moment.”
There was a silence and then a short, barking laugh. Some of the tension had gone out of Glencannon's voice when he spoke next: “What was he after up there?”
Long story. No time now. Just be calm. Jonnie said aloud, “The girls are safe. Thor is hurt but all right.”
A sigh of relief at the other end.
“Can you still pilot a plane?” said Jonnie.
Pause. “My ribs are a bit caved in and I have a twisted ankle. That's what's taking so long getting back to the compound. But yes, MacTyler, of course I can still pilot a plane.”
“Keep traveling toward the compound. Have a light ready to flash. I’ll send a mine car for you. They'll need air cover.”
“I have a light. I’m sorry about the air cover.”
“It was my fault,” said Jonnie. “Good luck.”
Dancer alternately trotted and ran. Keep calm. Things were not hopeless. They had a fighting chance. There were bright spots. They had agreed not to blow up the whole compound. The historian wanted the library, Angus wanted the machine shops. They evidently hadn't sent any radioactive bullets into the domes. Except for the drone and its escort they still apparently had air control.
At five and a half miles he began calling Robert the Fox at the compound, hoping somebody was monitoring the mine radio. The schoolmaster answered; Jonnie was surprised for there were several classified as noncombatants: the parson, the old women, the historian, and the schoolmaster. Jonnie shortly heard a relieved Robert the Fox.
“The girls are safe,” said Jonnie. There was a pause at the other end as Robert the Fox apparently passed the word along. When the mike opened next from that end, Jonnie heard some cheering in the background. The news was evidently popular.
“We're holding out here,” said Robert the Fox. “I have to talk to you about something when you get here, but not on this open line.”
Dancer skirted a clump of trees. It was getting pretty dark.
“Those apes can't talk English,” said Jonnie.
“No matter, still can't talk about it. When will you be here?”
“About fifteen minutes,” said Jonnie.
“Come in through the ravine to the north. There's a lot of heavy return fire near the compound.”
“Right,” said Jonnie. “Are the planes okay?”
“We pulled them back to better cover in the ravine. We don't have pilots.”
“I know. Listen now. Have somebody put the following items in one plane: warm clothing, a robe, mittens for me; something to eat; some plain, nonradioactive limpet mines; an assault rifle; an air mask with plenty of air bottles– I’ll be flying at one hundred fifty thousand feet.”
There was a silence at the other end and Jonnie prompted: “Got that?”
“Yes,” said Robert the Fox. “It will be done.” He certainly didn't sound very eager.
“Send out a couple of mine cars,” said Jonnie. He gave the locations. “Better send a man or two to help bring in Terl."
"Terl?" said Robert the Fox.
“It’s the naked truth,” said Jonnie. “Get that plane ready. I’ll be taking off just as soon as I arrive.”
A silence. Then, “Will do.” He went off the air.
About five minutes later, a mine car passed him going north in the twilight. It was the parson, one of the old women, and a Scot with his arm in a sling. The parson raised his hand in a benediction– no, it was a salute! They were off to get Thor and the girls and Terl. A great length of hoist chain was flying out behind the mine car. Jonnie glanced back. The old woman was carrying a blast rifle.
The sound of the fire exchange was getting loud. The spray of the fire system was shooting two hundred feet in the air. Under it winked the blue-green of blast rifles. The stuttering orange flashes of assault weapons were plainer in the floodlights that were on all over the compound.
Jonnie sped Dancer down into the opening of the ravine and pulled to a halt beside the two remaining planes. Streaks of blast rifle shots laced the sky above their heads. The horse was blowing heavily, covered with lather, but not foundered. One thing at a time, Jonnie told himself. You can catch the drone.
Chapter 2
Robert the Fox had his old cape thrown over his antiradiation battle dress. His grizzled hair was singed on one side. His face was composed but there was a hint of concern. He grabbed Jonnie's wrist and gave it a hearty shake of welcome.
Jonnie looked at the singed hair. “How are casualties?”
“Light,” said Robert the Fox. “Surprisingly light. They don't want to show themselves to us. It impeded their aim. And it's like fighting in a rainstorm. Look, you're not wearing antiradiation-'
“That water is washing radiation away as fast as you fire it in,” said Jonnie. “I have something to do. There's no breathe-gas in that drone. I don't need radiation cover.”
"Jonnie, can't that drone wait until the minesites have been flattened? It will take the drone up to eighteen hours to get where it's going overseas. We tracked it on the search equipment of this plane. Which is to say, we tracked the escort. The drone has wave cancellers.”
Jonnie opened the plane door. It was all ready. There was bread and meat on the seat. An old woman popped up beside him and handed him a cup of steaming herb tea that smelled suspiciously of whiskey. When he looked at her, questioning her presence in this battle zone, she said, “They can't eat bullets!” and laughed a cackling laugh.
Robert's hand was detaining him. “We still have radio silence successfully in.”
They had agreed to give the remote minesite attack pilots twelve hours of radio silence to let them finish off the outlying areas with total surprise if possible. “That's more than they need. We can shorten it and they can converge on that drone-'
“It’s headed for Scotland,” said Jonnie.
“That's its first stop.”
“I know.”
Jonnie finished off the hot drink and started to climb into the plane.
The detaining hand again. “There's something I’ve got to tell you.” When Jonnie had stopped to listen, he continued, “We may not have hit Psychlo."
“I know,” said Jonnie.
“That means that we may need all the planes and equipment we can get here. They're in hangars under us. We don't have men enough to take the place by assault and we mustn't destroy it.”
“You can work this out with Glencannon. You'll have a pilot in half an hour or so. You can bash it in from the air.” He made to get into the plane and again Robert's hand was on his sleeve.
“We had a funny thing happen, just before sunset,” said Robert. “A tank surrendered!”
Jonnie stepped back onto the ground. He might as well spend this time getting into the warm clothing needed at high altitudes and he proceeded to do so. “Go on.”
Robert took a deep breath, but before he went on a runner came up to tell him the historian had delivered a new load of ammunition from the Academy. Robert told him to see it was passed out. The blast fire needles continued to lash overhead in the now quite dark night.
“The tank is a 'Bash Our Way to Glory.' It 's down there at the other end of the ravine. Oh, don't be alarmed. It 's in our hands. It came out of the garage port and came right straight toward us. We hit it with bazookas and they didn't even dent it. But it didn't fire back. It went right straight down to the end of the ravine there and threw out an intercom through an atmosphere lock and said it wanted to talk to the 'Hockner Leader.' It wanted a guarantee of safety in return for cooperation.”
Battlefield Earth Page 42
