Battle for the Stars

CHAPTER 16

At three minutes and fourteen seconds before midnight a small, fast spacecraft, with the insignia of the striding warrior on her bows, dropped down out of the starlight like a humming shadow. It could not have been heard far by human ears, but the farm dogs up and down the valley heard it and set up a startled barking. The scout came down, landed in the brushy meadow and was silent. And presently the distant dogs also fell silent.

Birrel stood up, whispering as he did so to Garstang, who remained crouched with the heavy shocker, beside Vinson and Mallinson.

"All right, you know what to do, and for God's sake make it fast when you move."

He walked boldly out into the dark meadow. The scout lay black and brooding, its fish-tailed bulk a vague, darker silhouette against the brambles and weeds and pale, white blossoms of Queen Anne's Lace. Birrel stepped toward it, and as he did so he took out a tiny pocket-lamp and flashed it briefly, once.

He was sweating now. If Tauncer had arranged a specific recognition signal, he would be cut down before he took ten more steps. He had to gamble on the chance that the homing-beam from the flitter would be the only signal. It had seemed like a good gamble, until now. Now it did not seem so good.

Several eternities went by while he took four more steps forward. Then there was a familiar grinding sound and a door in the side of the scout opened, showing, inside it, a small airlock, illuminated by the faintest of blue light.

Birrel swallowed hard. His gamble had paid off. He was going to live, but maybe only two minutes more, if things went wrong.

A uniformed man appeared in the faint, blue light of the airlock, and stood in a waiting attitude. That would be the captain of the scout-vessel, Birrel thought. He surely would be there to meet Tauncer on a mission so important as this one. He did not see anyone else, but he knew very well that one crewman would be standing just inside, at the air-lock panel.

Birrel walked forward in the darkness. He raised his voice, in as good an imitation of Tauncer's as he could muster, speaking in sharp complaint.

"You should have been earlier! Don't show any lights — we've got to get out of here fast!"

"Earlier?” said the man in the airlock. “Why, you said yourself—"

Birrel drew the shocker from his pocket and let go with it, at eight paces distance. The man who was speaking shut up and fell.

Now was the time, the decisive moment. Birrel ran forward the few yards to the airlock, his feet almost tripping in the briars. He ran into the lock just as an Orionid crewman with an incredulous expression on his face stepped in from the other side, staring at the officer lying on the floor. Birrel dropped him with a burst from the shocker and leaped over him as he fell, heading for the inner door.

His luck suddenly ran out. There was another crewman in the corridor, just beyond the lock panel, and he was drawing his side-arm. Birrel fired and ducked. He did not duck fast enough and the burst from the other's shocker grazed his right side and that whole part of his body went numb and be started to fall.

He would not fall, damn it. He lurched against the smooth metal wall, leaning to support himself. The shocker had fallen from his hand, and, while he had dropped the man in the corridor, he could hear voices, somewhere beyond, now raised in alarm. Where were Garstang and the others? What were they doing out there, anyway?

Then he heard them in the darkness outside, thrashing like cows through the brush and high grass. He also heard an alarm siren go off forward in the scout. He ought to do something, to move, but, for the moment, he was as helpless as an old woman, leaning against the wall and trying not to fall down on the unconscious man, who had done this to him.

Garstang and Vinson came pounding into the lock, carrying the heavy shocker between them. Garstang looked professionally worried, but Vinson was the excited amateur at fighting, his eyes popping.

"Get it in here!” Birrel said. He meant to shout it, but his voice came out as a croak.

The big shocker was no more use in the airlock than it would have been from outside. Even a small scout had enough shielding in its hull to stop stuff like this, and the shielding in any ship was continued through the inner wall of its airlock.

"Are you hurt?” said Vinson. “What—"

Garstang said, “Come on.” He hauled Vinson after him, the heavy squat machine precariously carried between them, past Birrel and the sprawled figure on the floor.

He slammed the thing down on the floor, with its projection-grid facing down the corridor, and flipped the switch. As though they had timed it for that, two men, who wore the striding warrior on their jackets, popped into the farther end of the corridor. They had weapons in their hands, but did not use them. They seemed to skate and slide majestically forward before they crumpled up under the soundless and invisible blast.

With an effort, Birrel croaked to Garstang, “Sweep it, Joe, what's the matter with you?"

"The damn thing's heavy, didn't you know?” panted Garstang. The shocker was still on, still humming, and Garstang was trying to pivot it around so that its blast would sweep the interior of the whole scout, through the light bulkheads that could not shield against it. Vinson was trying to help him, but he did not understand exactly what Garstang was doing and he was more hindrance than help. Birrel tried to get down to help, but his numbed leg instantly gave way under him and he sat down and thought what a ridiculous leader he made, sitting here on his backside, in the corridor. Then, as Mallinson's men came running in from outside, he got his voice enough to yell at them, “Help Garstang!"

Kane understood instantly what Garstang was doing. He sprang forward, shoving Vinson out of the way, and grabbed one side of the big shocker. He and Garstang rocked and tilted the heavy thing.

In the farther parts of the scout-craft there was bedlam going on, a sound of things breaking and men's voices raised in inarticulate cries. A tall man, with a lieutenant's tabs on his shoulders, came at a staggering run into the passage. Vinson raised his old shocker, but there was no need, the man fell and lay still. Birrel, struggling to scramble again to his feet, felt the metal floor and walls quivering with the jarring force that was blasting through the whole ship.

He said in a moment, “That should be enough. Shut it off and go on in. You help me, Vinson."

Garstang and Kane and the rest of Mallinson's men went down the corridor in a rush. Mallinson himself was behind Birrel, looking a little white-lipped, as though violence was a new and upsetting thing to him, but looking determined, also.

Vinson was shaking a little as he helped Birrel up and steadied him with a husky arm. He kept babbling, “Have we done it? Have we taken the ship?"

"Depends if the big shocker caught them in time,” said Birrel. “Help me forward."

There were sounds from forward and overhead, men's voices calling, but whether they were the voices of Mallinson's men or of Orionids he did not know.

"Up this companionway,” he told Vinson. “Damn this leg!"

Vinson and Mallinson helped boost him up the companionway and Birrel could not help thinking what a totally unheroic leader of an attack force he made. “I should have a sword to wave,” he thought disgustedly.

Up in the communications room behind the bridge of the scout, two of the Orionid crew lay sprawled where they had fallen from their chairs. There were splinters of glass and plastic where the sonic wave had shattered equipment.

"The question is, did it stop these communist men in time?” said Birrel. “If they got a flash off to their parent squadrons—"

Mallinson ran back out of the room, shouting for Kane. When the technician came, he was puffing and looked excited and triumphant.

"I think we've swept the craft,” he said. “Two men still half-conscious, but they couldn't do anything. The boys are searching—"

Mallinson interrupted. “Look at this communic stuff. Was a message being sent when we hit them?"

Kane lost some of his excitement and went over and started to examine the bank of controls in front of the two empty chairs. They waited, Birrel leaning heavily on Vinson.

Kane said finally, “No. The settings show they didn't even have a carrier wave on yet."

"All right,” said Birrel. “You'd better secure all prisoners before they come around. Mallinson, you might look through the log, though I doubt you'll find anything there to help us. What we need to know is probably in that captain's brain and nowhere else."

As Mallinson nodded and hurried out, Birrel turned to Vinson. “Help me into one of those chairs."

Vinson, as he did so, said excitedly, “We did all right, didn't we?"

Birrel looked at him and managed to grin. “We did fine. You did fine."

Joe Garstang, still sweating from his exertions, came in. He said, “Those lads weren't playing, their shockers were all set on lethal. It's a good thing you only caught a graze.

"I've had enough good things tonight to last me,” Birrel said sourly. “Rub my side."

Garstang did so, and, after a number of minutes, the stunned nerves recovered enough so that Birrel could stand on his own. With Vinson and Garstang, he limped back down through the scout to the airlock. The Orionid captain, senseless as a log, was propped in a sitting position against the wall and two of Mallinson's men were watching him.

Birrel looked at him for a moment. Then he went outside. It was somehow astonishing, after the noise and fighting and running inside the ship, to find that the dark woods were as silent as ever. The breeze blew soft with the unfamiliar smells of Earth, and far away, across the starlit valley, an alarm dog was still yelping querulously.

Birrel took the porto out of his pocket and talked into it for a few minutes. Then he put it back, and limped back to the blue-lighted airlock.

Mallinson was there now. “Not a thing in the papers.” He glanced at the unconscious Orionid captain. “But he'll know how and when those squadrons plan to come. We'll get him down to New York and probe him there, fast."

Birrel nodded. “I'll go with you. I've just called my squadron. The Fifth is going on Alert."

Mallinson looked up sharply. “Oh, no. Not without Council sanction. I've made it clear that we don't trust Lyra one bit more than Orion, and it will be up to the Council whether you're allowed to act in this."

"Council be damned,” Birrel said. “My squadron is not going to be caught flatfooted. Our scouts will take off in an hour. Our light cruisers in two."

Mallinson said grimly, “If any of your ships attempt to take off without permission, they'll be hit by our missiles."

"They will take off,” Birrel said. “You can accept that as a constant in your calculations. You'd better get on to Charteris and tell him so and have him send new orders to those missile-batteries."

Mallinson looked at him, and then a fine sweat began to come out on his forehead. He said, “I can't do that."

"If you don't,” Birrel said unyieldingly, “you'll have a first-class battle with the Fifth right there on the spaceport. You may clobber us. But if you do, all Solleremos’ squadrons will have to do is come in and pick up the pieces."

Mallinson's control snapped and he gave way to a white anger. “You think, because there's a crisis, you can issue ultimatums—"

Birrel broke in harshly. “The ultimatum was yours. And I'm calling it. Get one thing straight. The Fifth is not going to be caught down. I'll repeat that. The Fifth is not going to be caught down!"

Whatever was in his voice finally got through to Mallinson. He looked at Birrel, a look of trapped frustration and pure dislike.

"I'll call Charteris,” he said finally. “It'll be up to him."

Birrel nodded. “I'd make it all very clear to him, if I were you.

He went back out into the soft darkness, and Vinson and Garstang followed him. He said to Vinson, “You don't mind my wife staying with you a little? I don't want her alone here."

"Lord, no, she's welcome,” said Vinson. “But you—"

"I'll be busy for a while,” said Birrel, and added, “One way or another."

Now began hurried movement around the scout. Kane's voice could be heard ordering some of the men to get flitters and bring them to this place, giving others instructions for the securing of the senseless men inside the scout.

Birrel waited.

Mallinson finally came to him.

"I told Charteris,” said Mallinson. “It's up to him. If he considers Lyra a bigger threat than Orion, your ships will be hit when they take off."

Joe Garstang said a coarse word. “In my eye! You won't take on us and Solleremos too!"

Mallinson said nothing to that. He said stiffly to Birrel, “You're to return with us to New York. The flitters will be here in a minute."

He strode away, and looking at his stiff, unyielding back, Birrel wished he was as confident as Garstang. There was an obstinacy about these Earthmen that he was beginning to recognize, and it worried him so deeply that, for a moment, he considered calling Brescnik and cancelling his order.

No. Somewhere, out there in the starry sky, Solleremos’ sneak strike must be on its way, and no one knew how near. The Fifth was going out to meet it, even if it had to fight its way out.