So’passed the sister-ship, and Rodebush turned his plates upon the vessel of Nerado. But that highly intelligent amphibian had seen all that had occurred. He had long since given over the pursuit of the speedster, and he did not rush in to do hopeless battle beside his fellow Nevians against the Tellurians. His analytical detectors had written down each detail of every weapon and of every screen employed; and even while prodigious streamers of force were raving out from his vessel, braking her terrific progress and swinging her around in an immense circle back toward far Nevia, his scientists and mechanics were doubling and redoubling the power of his already Titanic installations, to match and if possible to overmatch those of Triplanetary’s super- dreadnaught.
“Do we kill him now or do we let him suffer a while longer?” Costigan demanded.
“I don’t think so, yet,” Rodebush replied. “Would you, Cleve?”
“Not yet,” said Cleveland, grimly, reading the other’s thought and agreeing with it.
“Let him pilot us to Nevia; we might not be able to find it without a guide. While we’re at it we want to so pulverize that crowd that if they never come near the Solarian system again they’ll think it’s twenty minutes too soon.”
Thus it was that the Boise, increasing her few dynes of driving force at a rate just sufficient to match her quarry’s acceleration, pursued the Nevian ship. Apparently exerting every effort, she never came quite within range of the fleeing raider; yet never was she so far behind that the Nevian space-ship was not in clear register upon her observation plates.
Nor was Nerado alone in strengthening his vessel. Costigan knew well and respected highly the Nevian scientist-captain, and at his suggestion much time was spent in reenforcing the super-ship’s armament to the iron-driven limit of theoretical and mechanical possibility.
In mid-space, however, the Nevian slowed down.
“What gives?” Rodebush demanded of the group at large. “Not turn-over time already, is it?”
“No.” Cleveland shook his head. “Not for at least a day yet.”
“Cooking up something on Nevia, is my guess,” Costigan put in. “If I know that lizard at all, he wired ahead specifications for the welcoming committee. We’re getting there too fast, so he’s stalling. Check?”
“Check.” Rodebush agreed. “But there’s no use of us waiting, if you’re sure you know which one of those stars up ahead is Nevia. Do you, Cleve?”
“Definitely.”
“The only other thing is, then, shall we blow them out of the ether first?”
“You might try,” Costigan remarked. “That is, if you’re damned sure that you can run if you have to.”
“Huh? Run?” demanded Rodebush.
“Just that. It’s spelled R-U-N, run. I know those freaks better than you do. Believe me, Fritz, they’ve got what it takes.”
“Could be, at that,” Rodebush admitted. “We’ll play it safe.”
The Boise leaped upon the Nevian, every weapon aflame. But, as Costigan had expected, Nerado’s vessel was completely ready for any emergency. And, unlike her sister-ship, she was manned by scientists well versed in the fundamental theory of the weapons with which they fought. Beams, rods, and lances of energy flamed and flared; planes and pencils cut, slashed, and stabbed; defensive screens glowed redly or flashed suddenly into intensely brilliant, coruscating incandescence. Crimson opacity struggled sullenly against violet curtain of annihilation. Material projectiles and torpedoes were launched under full beam control; only to be exploded harmlessly in mid-space, to be blasted into nothingness, or to disappear innocuously against impenetrable polycyclic screens. Even Cleveland’s drill was ineffective. Both vessels were equipped completely with iron-driven mechanisms; both were manned by scientists capable of wringing the highest possible measure of power from their installations. Neither could harm the other.
The Boise flashed away; reached Nevia in minutes. Down into the crimson atmosphere she dropped, down toward the city which Costigan knew was Nerado’s home port.
“Hold up a bit!” Costigan cautioned, sharply. “There’s something down there that I don’t like!”
As he spoke there shot upward from the city a multitude of flashing balls. The Nevians had mastered the secret of the explosive of the fishes of the greater deeps, and were launching it in a veritable storm against the Tellurian visitor. “Those?” asked Rodebush, calmly. The detonating balls of destruction were literally annihilating even the atmosphere beyond the polycyclic screen, but that barrier was scarcely affected.
“No. That.” Costigan pointed out a hemispherical dome which, redly translucent, surrounded a group of buildings towering high above their neighbors. “Neither those high towers nor those screens were there the last time I was in this town. Nerado was stalling for time, and that’s what they’re doing down there – that’s all those fire-balls are for. Good sign, too – they aren’t ready for us yet. We’d better take ‘em while the taking’s good. If they were ready for us, our play would be to get out of here while we’re all in one piece.”
Nerado had been in touch with the scientists of his city; he had been instructing them in the construction of converters and generators of such weight and power that they could crush even the defenses of the super-ship. The mechanisms were not, however, ready; the entirely unsuspected possibilities of speed inherent in absolute inertialessness had not entered into Nerado’s calculations.
“Better drop a few cans down onto that dome, fellows,” Rodebush suggested to his gunners.
“We can’t,” came Adlington’s instant reply. “No use trying it – that’s a polycyclic screen. Can you drill it? If you can, I’ve got a real bomb here – that special we built – that will do the trick if you can protect it from them until it gets down into the water.”
“I’ll try it,” Cleveland answered, at a nod from the physicist. “I couldn’t drill Nerado’s polycyclics, but I couldn’t use any momentum on him. Couldn’t ram him – he fell back with my thrust. But that screen down there can’t back away from us, so maybe I can work on it. Get your special ready. Hang on, everybody!”
The Boise looped upward, and from an altitude of miles dove straight down through a storm of force-balls, beams, and shells; a dive checked abruptly as the hollow tube of energy which was Cleveland’s drill snarled savagely down ahead of her and struck the shielding hemisphere with a grinding, lightning-spitting shock. As it struck, backed by all the enormous momentum of the plunging space-ship and driven by the full power of her prodigious generators it bored in, clawing and gouging viciously through the tissues of that rigid and unyielding barrier of pure energy. Then, mighty drill and plunging mass against iron-driven wall, eye-tearing and furiously spectacular warfare was waged.
Well it was for Triplanetary that day that its super-ship carried ample supplies of allotropic iron; well it was that her originally Gargantuan converters and generators had been doubled and quadrupled in power on the long Nevian way! For that ocean – girdled fortress was powered to withstand any conceivable assault – but the Boise’s power and momentum were now inconceivable; and every watt and every dyne was solidly behind that hellishly flaming, that voraciously tearing, that irresistibly ravening cylinder of energy incredible!
Through the Nevian shield that cylinder gnawed its frightful way, and down its protecting length there drove Adlington’s “Special” bomb. “Special” it was indeed; so great of girth that it could barely pass through the central orifice of Ten’s mighty projector, so heavily charged with sensitized atomic iron that its detonation upon any planet would not have been considered for an instant if that planet’s integrity meant anything to its attackers. Down the shielding pipe of force the “Special” screamed under full propulsion, and beneath the surface of Nevia’s ocean it plunged.
“Cut!” yelled Adlington, and as the scintillating drill expired the bomber pressed his detonating switch.
For moments the effect of the explosion seemed unimportant. A dull, low rumble was all that was to be heard of a concussion that jarred red Nevia to her very center; and all that could be seen was a slow heaving of the water. But that heaving did not cease. Slowly, so slowly it seemed to the observers now high in the heavens, the waters rose up and parted; revealing a vast chasm blown deep into the ocean’s rocky bed. Higher and higher the lazy mountains of water reared; effortlessly to pick up, to smash, to grind into fragments, and finally to toss aside every building, every structure, every scrap of material substance pertaining to the whole Nevian city.
Flattened out, driven backward for miles, the buffeted waters were pressed, leaving exposed bare ground and broken rock where once had been the ocean’s busy floor. Tremendous blasts of incandescent gas raved upward, jarring even the enormous mass of the super-ship poised so high above the site of the explosion. Then the displaced millions of tons of water rushed to make even more complete the already total destruction of the city. The raging torrents poured into that yawning cavern, filled it, and piled mountainously above it; receding and piling up, again and again; causing tidal waves which swept a full half of Nevia’s mighty, watery globe. That city was silenced – forever.