A-Bomb, circa 1955 (Earth-style) U.S.A. manufacture.
Across the room, the Mikeril got up and headed for the wounded.
Horsip swore, fired again, the Mikeril went down, and Horsip jumped over the desk, grabbed the arm of the nearest soldier, and pointed across the room.
“Get that thing out of here. How the devil would you like to be over there by the butcher’s tent and have that take a bite out of you?”
“Sir, we want to blow up the Glops with this.”
“You can’t use it on the Glops. It’s too strong. It will blow us all up. Get that Mikeril. . . . Who’s guarding that door? There’s another one!”
Moffis put that one down with a short burst from his stitching-gun.
Horsip got a phone down, but at once a little flag on a different phone popped up. He took it off its hook, and the voice of the Snard emissary sprang out. Just then, Horsip spotted another Mikeril and hung up.
The provost marshal appeared in the doorway, looked around incredulously as the soldiers chased the Mikeril around the room, stepped back into the corridor, looked up and roared, “Who left the hatch open?” He aimed his portable stitching-gun straight up, and opened fire.
Horsip heard a thud from the direction of the Master Control Center.
A Mikeril appeared in the doorway.
Horsip shot it, then shook the empty shells out of the gun, and worked in fresh bullets. The provost marshal approached.
“Sir,” said the provost marshal, “request permission to arm the staff and put them on guard duty.”
“Granted.”
The Mikeril, red eyes glaring, black fur weirdly on end, rose to its feet, clawed hands lifting out.
Horsip aimed carefully and shot it between the eyes.
The provost marshal glanced around, put a short burst into its neck, looked back, and said, “When they disconnected the power cables, they didn’t lock the hatch. All that saved us is, a bunch of them tried to come through all at once, and got jammed in the hole.”
The Mikeril struggled to its feet.
Another appeared in the doorway.
Horsip shot the first Mikeril in the head, and the provost marshal stepped aside to get a shot at the next without hitting the Control Center.
Horsip reloaded, scooped some bullets out of the top drawer of his desk, and looked around.
Across the room, weapons were being issued to the staff. Smoke was drifting in from the corridor. Several guards ran in, holding cloths to their faces, and set up a stitching-gun just inside the doorway.
Another Mikeril appeared in the Master Control Center.
Horsip aimed carefully, and shot it.
Moffis was speaking into one of the phones: ” . . . the last automatic doors. Get ready to pull in the boom of the communications and control cables. Don’t go out after them—it’s thick with Mikerils out there. Be ready to start the take-off as soon as I give the word.”
More guards came in, dragged out the Mikerils, then there was a rumble and the smoke from the corridor abruptly stopped coming in. Horsip looked around, saw no immediate trouble, crossed the room to the Master Control Center, to work the viewer controls.
In quick succession, there sprang onto the screen a view of an empty control room, then a gangway crowded with troops, then a view down a broad avenue that Horsip at once recognized as the capital’s main thoroughfare. The scene shifted.
Now Horsip was looking at big grayish-brown traveling forts, even larger than those he had seen on Earth, moving slowly down the wide avenue. Behind them came full-tracked armored troop carriers with troops in battle dress standing on the tops of the vehicles holding small microphones, and glancing watchfully around. Abruptly there came into view several soldiers carrying automatic rifles, then a solitary drummer whose steady, slow monotonous beat suddenly filled the room, then an officer in battle dress with a trumpeter to his right and a sergeant carrying a portable communicator to his left.
Immediately behind these three came a soldier carrying the flag of Centra.
Behind the flag, strictly aligned in rank and file, twelve abreast, moving in unison to the beat of the solitary drum, marched six ranks of silent drummers, drumsticks turned back under their arms.
Abruptly, there was the piercing blast of a Centran trumpet. The tone changed swiftly, to end on a single high note.
The massed drummers brought down their drumsticks. The crash of the drums filled the room.
Horsip snapped off the volume control.
From outside came the roll of massed drums.
On the screen, dense formations of heavily armed Centran troops filled the avenue, sunlight glinting on their guns, helmets, and the interlocked plates of their battle tunics. Overhead flew small ships, similar to spacecraft in appearance, but apparently built around one large gun or rocket-launcher that protruded from the front of the ships like the tip of a sword thrust out from behind a shield. In the background, at the far end of the avenue, out in the distance beyond the limits of the city itself, could be seen a looming tower, and behind it another and another, lined up at the city’s spaceport. Climbing steeply from this distant spaceport came slim needle shapes that glinted in the morning sun.
From overhead came the roar of another huge ship passing over toward the spaceport.
There was a flashing yellow light to Horsip’s right. Horsip snapped on the communications screen.
The same general who had reported to Horsip the day before saluted.
“Nock Sarlin, Commander Battle Fleet V, reporting to United Forces Command Headquarters. Sir, the enemy is destroyed as a fleet. Isolated enemy units are drawing away from us with acceleration slightly superior to our fleet maximum. Our detectors show the second fleet on our plot yesterday is withdrawing at high speed on a diverging course. A third fleet, approximately 20 percent superior in numbers to our own, is appearing on our remote pick-ups, approaching at high superlight velocities, beaming the command code of Able Hunter, and the identification of a Battle Fleet 46. We have Able Hunter on our books, but no Battle Fleet 46. These ships show characteristics contrary to Centran standard construction, but have beamed the correct recognition signal. Shall we maintain concentration and block Fleet 46? Or shall we continue the pursuit?”
From outside came muted sounds of a tramp and rumble, and of the shrill blast of whistles signaling orders.
Horsip fought his way out of his daze.
“Fleet 46 is a special unit and their ships are of nonstandard construction. This is normal for this unit. Continue the pursuit, but don’t get too spread out.”
On the screen, Sarlin saluted, made a quarter turn, and spoke briskly, “Slow units form on the axis of flight. Pursuit units to the front by flotillas, wings, and squadrons. Unit star with wreath to the outfit that brings down the most ships!”
The screen went blank. Horsip turned to find Moffis listening wide-eyed and staring at the screen.
“These are our men?”
Horsip said warily, “If not, Able Hunter has tricks I never heard of. But we’d better take a look before we count on it.”
Surrounded by guards, they reopened the door to the corridor.
Amidst dead Mikerils and the corpses of the Ahaj Revolutionary Army, heavily armed Centran troops saluted. From outside came the deafening roll of drums.
From a window of the building, Horsip looked out on massive columns marching through heavy clouds of dust, followed by traveling forts, launchers, troop transports, and motorized cannon.
Moffis looked down in choked silence, then turned to Horsip.
“The High Council has come through!”
Horsip nodded. The High Council must have drawn on the resources of the huge Sealed Zone, and now put forth its concealed strength.
But Horsip, thinking of the charts he had seen of the two monster dictatorships, drew a mental comparison. Although victorious here, the Integral Union was in fact still not the equal of either of the two dictatorships.
Moffis said, “This will change things.”
“Not enough. They’re still stronger.”
“What about Hunter’s fleet?”
“If that were real, we’d be stronger than either alone, but not both together.”
“As far as they know, it is real.”
“And that gives us our chance. Well, Moffis, let’s see if we can dig these dictators a hole and shove them into it.”
* * *
During the next few days, Horsip, like an accident victim after a gigantic transfusion and the most expert treatment, found himself in better shape than he would have dared believe possible. The loyal planets were swept by waves of enthusiasm. The uncertain hastened to his banner. The disloyal trembled. Dictator Ganfre earnestly talked peace, while the Snard Soviet and its allies were gushingly friendly.
Horsip, calculating the odds, and observing that Ganfre was now noticeably diminished by the outcome of the battle, was very agreeable to the heavily bandaged and crestfallen NRPA emissary. Horsip explained that the Integral Union had had to protect itself, that everything he could have done to warn of the danger had been done, that really it wasn’t Ganfre that he wanted to fight, but certain “degenerate elements.” The emissary, listening alertly, at once identified Snard. If, Horsip suggested, Ganfre and the Integral Union could get together, it might be possible to do something about these degenerates. The emissary swallowed the bait, and at once went off to get in touch with his master.