Chapter 24

Grand Fleet had been rapidly assembling in the region near Simonides, just outside visual range, and away from the passenger and freight lanes. Mobilization was now complete.

Admiral Newton and Senior Lieutenant Hanlon had been invited to ride the Sirius, High Admiral Ferguson’s flagship, and were glad to avail themselves of that privilege. They wore uniforms conforming to their rank, but were disguised so that any chance acquaintances could not recognize them, although there were no other Terrans aboard.

Orders were given, and in strict formation the fleet blasted for Algon. First went the great screen of scouts, fanning out in all directions from a common center, the outer fringes at higher speed until a great bowl-like formation was secured. Then all the scouts standardized their speed. When they reached Algon they would completely englobe the planet just beyond detection range.

Next came the light cruisers, in the same formation, but when they englobed at Algon they would go inside the globe of scouts, nearer the planet’s surface. Then the heavy cruisers and battleships would descend in three mass formations, one directly over each of the three known shipyards.

“If any of the ships being built there are in shape to attack--if they have weapons installed and crews to use them,” High Admiral Ferguson’s orders had been very explicit, “you’ll have to burn them down. Otherwise we want those ships untouched.”

George Hanlon was thrilled with the excitement of what was coming, yet knew a touch of fear. He had never been under fire, and knew only from hearsay just what it meant to be in a ship that might be destroyed any instant without the least chance of anyone escaping. In space warfare, there usually just were no survivors. You won and lived--or you lost and were blasted out of existence.

But it wouldn’t be long now--the scouts were already establishing their globe just outside of detection range. “No signs of being discovered yet,” they reported.

Then the light cruisers began slipping through the screen of scouts to take their positions. Suddenly, a number of great beams of energy stabbed up toward them from below, and the screens of the cruisers flared in brilliant confiscations of flame as those mighty rays struck them.

“Don’t you cruisers and scouts take foolish chances!” High Admiral Ferguson’s voice rasped into the mike. “If those beams are too hot, get back fast! Heavy cruisers and battleships, down!”

Instantly Hanlon could feel the surge of acceleration as the great ship he was riding plummeted planetward. In the plate he and his father were scanning, he could see the dots of blue light that identified the nearest scouts, and a moment later the greens of the light cruisers.

Then those dots fled behind his range of vision as the heavies flashed past them.

The plate Hanlon was using was of limited vision, so he could not see the battle as a whole, as High Admiral Ferguson could in his wide-coverage screens. Only what was going on directly below and close to either side was visible to Hanlon. Yet he could see several of those great, stabbing beams reaching out toward the fleet.

A change in color at one edge of his plate caught his eye, and he saw the ship nearest on his right begin to glow as a heavy beam from below worked on its screens, burrowing its way in and in, trying to blast the ship out of existence.

Great streams of radiance struck and ricocheted from its screens, which were swiftly mounting through the spectrum as more and more power was thrown against them by the enemy below.

The air in the Sirius began to grow hotter, and his father answered his inquiring look, “They’re attacking us, too, and that’s heating us up. Hope our screens hold,” he grinned grimly.

“You said it.” A shiver of fear gripped the young man, and he could feel himself trembling. His father threw a comforting arm across his shoulders. “First battles are always toughest,” he said evenly, and Hanlon calmed instantly.

He turned his attention to the screen again. That neighboring ship was struggling desperately to escape, knowing she could not stand much more.

“What’s the matter with that pilot?” Hanlon yelled. “Why don’t he flip her over and beat it?”

“Seems to be held by something,” his father’s anxious voice was tense. “Have those others got some sort of tractor beam?”

“Tractors?” Hanlon looked up in surprise. “I’ve read about them, but thought they were impossible.”

“Impossible to us because we haven’t got ‘em yet,” Newton said absently. “They are theoretically possible.”

Every beam from every Corps ship was piercing downward. Suddenly other ships were appearing, and the young man realized that the light cruisers were coming down to add their might to that of the battleships and heavies.

Four of the light cruisers maneuvered swiftly below the battleship next to the Sirius, one below the other, and in the instant of their alignment the big ship broke free, while the others flashed away from that restricting, holding tractor, or whatever it was.

It seemed like hours that Hanlon’s eyes strained, trying to see what was going on. They had slowed, his spaceman’s sense told him, and now he could see they were within the atmosphere, not too high above the ground. Now he could make out huge, squat mechanisms from which those deadly rays were pouring.

The Guddus, with their lack of knowledge of things mechanical, had not reported these to Hanlon, else he could have warned Admiral Ferguson about them, and the attack might possibly have been handled differently.

Suddenly a speaker blared, “Sector Two is in our hands. No total losses. A number of the enemy scouts got away--they’re far faster than anything we’ve got.”

A yell rose from every throat there in the control room.

Sector Two, Hanlon knew, was the spaceyard where the scouts and light cruisers were being built. “They probably hadn’t armed that field as much as these others,” he said to his father.

Newton nodded, then the two walked over to the High Admiral’s station and glanced into his larger bank of plates.

Now Hanlon could see clearly, and at first glance knew that none of the new enemy ships below them were fighting--only those ground batteries which encircled the shipyard. He could see that most of these were now out of action, destroyed by the Federation ships. The others were under terrific bombardment, not only from the ships’ beams, but from their bombs and guided missiles as well.

From the looks of the destroyed batteries, Hanlon guessed the explosive bombs had been followed by thermite to complete their destruction.

“We lost many?” Newton asked.

“No totals,” Ferguson’s voice was gleeful, “except one light cruiser. We must have caught them napping. If they can’t put up any more forces, it’ll all be over in a couple of minutes.”

A couple of minutes! Hanlon’s thought was a gasp. He glanced at his chronom, and was amazed. He had been sure this battle had lasted for hours--but it was less than ten minutes. It didn’t seem possible ... but he quickly remembered what he had learned in school, and knowing something of those terrific powers unleashed there, the wonder was now that it had lasted that long.

A speaker near them blared. “Admiral Houghton reporting. Sector Three taken. Two of our cruisers blasted, and one battleship crippled. One enemy battleship was fighting us, and had to be destroyed. They’ve really got something, sir, that we’ll want to study and get for ourselves.”

Another yell of triumph came from the Corpsmen, and Hanlon felt a thrill of pride in the Service of which he was a part.

Then a moment later Admiral Ferguson called into his mike, “Cease fire, but stand by on careful watch. Orion and Athenia, send your specialists down in gigs. I’ll meet you there.”

The landing successfully completed without further activity from the enemy, Ferguson, a number of designated officer-specialists, Newton and Hanlon, some technicians, and a company of marines in full armor, disembarked and marched to the safest part of the ruined, still-burning spaceyard.