The Airlords of Han

by Philip Francis Nowlan

  CHAPTER XV

  The Counter-Attack

  The news which caused me to change my plans was grave enough. As I haveexplained, the American lines lay roughly to the east and the south ofthe city in the mountains. My own Gang held the northern flank of theeast line. To the south of us was the Colorado Union, a force of 5,000men and about 2,000 girls recruited from about fifteen Gangs. They werea splendid organization, well disciplined and equipped. Their posts,rather widely distributed, occupied the mountain tops and other pointsof advantage to a distance of about a hundred and fifty miles to thesouth. There the line turned east, and was held by the Gangs which hadcome up from the south. Now, simultaneously with the reports from myscouts that a large Han land force was working its way down on us fromthe north, and threatening to outflank us, came word from Jim Hallwell,Big Boss of the Colorado Union and the commander in chief of our army,that another large Han force was to the southwest of our western flank.And in addition, it seemed, most of the Han military forces at Lo-Tanhad been moved out of the city and advanced toward our lines before ourair-ball attack.

  The situation would not have been in the least alarming if the Hans hadhad no better arms to fight with than their disintegrator rays, whichnaturally revealed the locations of their generators the second thevisible beams went into play, and their airships, which we had learnedhow to bring down, first from the air, and now from the ground, throughultrono-controlled projectiles.

  But the Hans had learned their lesson from us by this time. Theirelectrono-chemists had devised atomic projectiles, rocket-propelled,very much like our own, which could be launched in a terrific barragewithout revealing the locations of their batteries, and they hadequipped their infantry with rocket guns not dissimilar to ours. Thisdivision of their army had been expanded by general conscription. So faras ordnance was concerned, we had little advantage over them; althoughtactically we were still far superior, for our jumping belts enabled ourmen and girls to scale otherwise inaccessible heights, concealthemselves readily in the upper branches of the giant trees, and gavethem a general all around mobility, the enemy could not hope to equal.

  We had the advantage too, in our ultronophones and scopes, in a field ofenergy which the Hans could not penetrate, while we could cut in ontheir electrono or (as I would have called it in the Twentieth Century)radio broadcasts.

  * * * * *

  Later reports showed that there were no less than 10,000 Hans in theforce to our north, which evidently was equipped with a portable powerbroadcast, sufficient for communication purposes and the local operationof small scoutships, painted a green which made them difficult todistinguish against the mountain and forest backgrounds. These shipsjust skimmed the surface of the terrain, hardly ever outliningthemselves against the sky. Moreover, the Han commanders wisely hadrefrained from massing their forces. They had developed over a very wideand deep front, in small units, well scattered, which were driving downthe parallel valleys and canyons like spearheads. Their communicationswere working well too, for our scouts reported their advance as wellrestrained, and maintaining a perfect front as between valley andvalley, with a secondary line of heavy batteries, moved by smallairships from peak to peak, following along the ridges somewhat behindthe valley forces.

  Hallwell had determined to withdraw our southern wing, pivoting it backto face the outflanking Han force on that side, which had already workedits way well down in back of our line.

  In the ultronophone council which we held at once, each Boss tuning inon Hallwell's band, though remaining with his unit, Wilma and I pleadedfor a vigorous attack rather than a defensive maneuver. Our suggestionwas to divide the American forces into three divisions, with all theswoopers forming a special reserve, and to advance with a rush on thethree Han forces behind a rolling barrage.

  But the best we could do was to secure permission to make such an attackwith our Wyomings, if we wished, to serve as a diversion while the lineswere reforming. And two of the southern Gangs on the west flank, whichwere eager to get at the enemy, received the same permission.

  The rest of the army fumed at the caution of the council, but it spokewell for their discipline that they did not take things in their ownhands, for in the eyes of those forest men who had been hounded forcenturies, the chance to spring at the throats of the Hans outweighedall other considerations.

  So, as the council signed off, Wilma and I turned to the eager facesthat surrounded us, and issued our orders.

  * * * * *

  In a moment the air was filled with leaping figures as the men and girlsshot away over the tree tops and up the mountain sides in the deploymentmovement.

  A group of our engineers threw themselves headlong toward a cave acrossthe valley, where they had rigged out a powerful electrono plantoperating from atomic energy. And a few moments later the littleportable receiver, the Intelligence Boss used to pick up the enemymessages, began to emit such ear-splitting squeals and howls that heshut it off. Our heterodyne or "radio-scrambling" broadcast had goneinto operation, emitting impulses of constantly varying wave-length overthe full broadcast range and heterodyning the Han communications intofutility.

  In a little while our scouts came leaping down the valley from thenorth, and our air balls now were hovering above the Han lines,operators at the control boards near-by painstakingly picking up thepictures of the Han squads struggling down the valleys with theircomparatively clumsy weapons.

  As fast as the air-ball scopes picked out these squads, their operators,each of whom was in ultronophone communication with a girl long-gunnerat some spot in our line, would inform her of the location of the enemyunit, and the latter, after a bit of mathematical calculation, wouldsend a rocket into the air which would come roaring down on, or verynear that unit, and wipe it out.

  But for all of that, the number of the Han squads were too much for us.And for every squad we destroyed, fifty advanced.

  And though the lines were still several miles apart, in most places, andin some cases with mountain ridges intervening, the Han fire controlbegan to sense the general location of our posts, and things became moreserious as their rockets too began to hiss down and explode here andthere in our lines, not infrequently killing or maiming one or more ofour girls.

  The men, our bayonet-gunners, had not as yet suffered, for they werewell in advance of the girls, under strict orders to shoot no rocketsnor in any way reveal their positions; so the Han rockets were goingover their heads.

  * * * * *

  The Hans in the valleys now were shooting diagonal barrages up theslopes toward the ridges, where they suspected we would be most stronglyposted, thus making a cross-fire up the two sides of a ridge, whiletheir heavy batteries, somewhat in the rear, shot straight along thetops of the ridges. But their valley forces were getting out ofalignment a bit by now, owing to our heterodyne operations.

  I ordered our swoopers, of which we had five, to sweep along above theseridges and destroy the Han batteries.

  Up in the higher levels where they were located, the Hans had littlecover. A few of their small rep-ray ships rose to meet our swoopers, butwere battered down. One swooper they brought to earth with adisintegrator ray beam, by creating a vacuum beneath it, but they did itno serious damage, for its fall was a light one. Subsequently it didtremendous damage, cleaning off an entire ridge.

  Another swooper ran into a catastrophe that had one chance in a millionof occurring. It hit a heavy Han rocket nose to nose. Inertron sheathingand all, it was blown into powder.

  But the others accomplished their jobs excellently. Small, two-manships, streaking straight at the Hans at between 600 and 700 miles anhour, they could not be hit except by sheer amazing luck, and theyshowered their tiny but powerful bombs everywhere as they went.

  At the same instant I ordered the girls to cease sharp-shooting, and laytheir barrages down in the valleys, with their long-guns set for maximumautomatic advance, and
to feed the reservoirs as fast as possible, whilethe bayonet-gunners leaped along close behind this barrage.

  Then, with a Twentieth Century urge to see with my own eyes rather thanthrough a viewplate, and to take part in the action, I turned commandover to Wilma and leaped away, fifty feet a jump, up the valley, towardthe distant flashes and rolling thunder.

  CHAPTER XVI

  Victory

  I had gone five miles, and had paused for a moment, half way up theslope of the valley to get my bearings, when a figure came hurtlingthrough the air from behind, and landed lightly at my side. It wasWilma.

  "I put Bill Hearn in command and followed, Tony. I won't let you go intothat alone. If you die, I do, too. Now don't argue, dear. I'mdetermined."

  So together we leaped northward again toward the battle. And after a bitwe pulled up close behind the barrage.

  Great, blinding flashes, like a continuous wall of gigantic fireworks,receded up the valley ahead of us, sweeping ahead of it a seething,tossing mass of debris that seemed composed of all nature, tons ofearth, rocks and trees. Ever and anon vast sections of the mountainsides would loosen and slide into the valley.

  And, leaping close behind this barrage, with a reckless skill andcourage that amazed me, our bayonet-gunners appeared in a continuousseries of flashing pictures, outlined in midleap against the wall offire.

  I would not have believed it possible for such a barrage to pass overany of the enemy and leave them unscathed. But it did. For the Hans,operating small disintegrator beams from local or field broadcasts,frantically bored deep, slanting holes in the earth as the fiery tidesof explosions rolled up the valleys toward them, and into these probablyhalf of their units were able to throw themselves and escapedestruction.

  But dazed and staggering they came forth again only to meet death fromthe terrible, ripping, slashing, cleaving weapons in the hands of ourleaping bayonet-gunners.

  Thrust! Cut! Crunch! Slice! Thrust! Up and down with vicious, tireless,flashing speed, swung the bayonets and ax-bladed butts of the Americangunners as they leaped and dodged, ever forward, toward new opponents.

  Weakly and ineffectually the red-coated Han soldiery thrust at them withspears, flailing with their short-swords and knives, or whipping abouttheir ray pistols. The forest men were too powerful, too fast in theirremorselessly efficient movement.

  With a shout of unholy joy, I gripped a bayonet-gun from the hands of agunner whose leg had been whisked out of existence beneath him by apistol ray, and leaped forward into the fight, launching myself at ared-coated officer who was just stepping out of a "worm hole."

  Like a shriek of the Valkyrie, Wilma's battle cry rang in my ear as she,too, shot herself like a rocket at a red-coated figure.

  I thrust with every ounce of my strength. The Han officer, grinningwickedly as he tried to raise the muzzle of his pistol, threw himselfbackward as my bayonet ripped the air under his nose. But his grinturned instantly to sickened surprise as the up-cleaving ax-blade on thebutt of my weapon caught him in the groin, half bisecting him.

  And from the corner of my eye I saw Wilma bury her bayonet in heropponent, screaming in ecstatic joy.

  * * * * *

  And so, in a matter of seconds, we found ourselves in the front rank,thrusting, cutting, dodging, leaping along behind that blinding anddeafening barrage in a veritable whirlwind of fury, until it seemed tome that we were exulting in a consciousness of excelling even that tideof destruction in our merciless efficiency.

  At last we became aware, in but a vague sort of way at first, that nomore red-coats were rising up out of the ground to go down again beforeour whirling, swinging weapons. Gradually we paused, looking about inwonder. Then the barrage ceased, and the sudden absence of the deafeningroll, and the wall of light, in themselves, deafened and blinded us.

  I leaped weakly toward the spot where hazily I spied Wilma, now droopingand swaying on her feet, supported as she was by her jumping belt, andcaught her in my arms, just as she was sinking gently to the ground.

  All around us the weary warriors, crimsoned now with the blood of theenemy, were sinking to the ground in exhaustion. And as I too, sankdown, clutching in my arms the unconscious form of my warrior wife, Ibegan to hear, through my helmet phones, the exultant report ofheadquarters.

  Our attack had swept straight through the enemy's sector, completelyannihilating everything except a few hundred of his troops on eitherflank. And these, in panic and terror, had scattered wildly in flight.We had wiped out a force more than ten times our own number. The rightflank of the American army was saved. And already the Colorado Union,from behind us, was leaping around in a great circling movement, closingin on the Han force that was advancing from the ruins of Lo-Tan.

  Far away, to the southwest, the southern Gangs, reinforced in the endby the bulk of our left wing, had struck straight at the enveloping Hanforce shattering it like a thunderbolt, and at present were busilyhunting down and destroying its scattered remnants.

  But before the Colorado Union could complete the destruction of thecentral division of the enemy, the despairing Hans saved them thetrouble. Company after company of them, knowing no escape was possible,lined up in the forest glades and valleys, while their officers sweptthem out of existence by the hundreds with their ray pistols, which theythen turned on themselves.

  And so the fall of Lo-Tan was accomplished. Somewhere in the seethingactivities of these few days, San-Lan, the "Heaven-Born," Emperor of theHans in America, perished, for he was heard of never again, and theunified action of the Hans vanished with him, though it was severalyears before one by one their remaining cities were destroyed and theirpopulations hunted down, thus completing the reclamation of America andinaugurating the most glorious and noble era of scientific civilizationin the history of the American race.

  * * * * *

  As I look back on those emotional and violent years from my presentvantage point of declining existence in an age of peace and good willtoward all mankind, they do seem savage and repellent.

  Then there flashes into my memory the picture of Wilma (now long sincegone to her rest) as, screaming in an utter abandon of merciless fury,she threw herself recklessly, exultantly into the thick of that wild,relentless slaughter; and my mind can find nothing savage nor repellentabout her.

  If I, product of the relatively peaceful Twentieth Century, was socompletely carried away by the fury of that war, intensified bycenturies of unspeakable cruelty on the part of the yellow men who werementally gods and morally beasts, shall I be shocked at the"bloodthirstiness" of a mate who was, after all, but a normal girl ofthat day, and who, girl as she was, never for a moment faltered in thehigh courage with which she threw herself into that combat, respondingto the passionate urge for freedom in her blood that not five centuriesof inhuman persecution could subdue?

  Had the Hans been raging tigers, or slimy, loathsome reptiles, would wehave spared them? And when in their centuries of degradation they haddestroyed the souls within themselves, were they in any way superior totigers or snakes? To have extended mercy would have been suicide.

  In the years that followed, Wilma and I travelled nearly every nation onthe earth which had succeeded in throwing off the Han domination,spurred on by our success in America, and I never knew her to show tothe men or women of any race anything but the utmost of sympatheticcourtesy and consideration, whether they were the noble brown-skinnedCaucasians of India, the sturdy Balkanites of Southern Europe, or thesimple, spiritual Blacks of Africa, today one of the leading races ofthe world, although in the Twentieth Century we regarded them asinferior. This charity and gentleness of hers did not fail even in ourcontacts with the non-Han Mongolians of Japan and the coast provinces ofChina.

  But that monstrosity among the races of men which originated as a hybridsomewhere in the dark fastnesses of interior Asia, and spread itselflike an inhuman yellow blight over the face of the globe--for that race,like all of us, she felt
nothing but horror and the irresistible urge toextermination.

  * * * * *

  Latterly, our historians and anthropologists find much support for thetheory that the Hans sprang from a genus of human-like creatures thatmay have arrived on this earth with a small planet (or large meteor)which is known to have crashed in interior Asia late in the TwentiethCentury, causing certain permanent changes in the earth's orbit andclimate.

  Geological convulsions blocked this section off from the rest of theworld for many years. And it is a historical fact that Chinesescientists, driving their explorations into it at a somewhat laterperiod, met the first wave of the on-coming Hans.

  The theory is that these creatures (and certain queer skeletons havebeen found in the "Asiatic Bowl") with a mental superdevelopment, but avacuum in place of that intangible something we call a soul, matedforcibly with the Tibetans, thereby strengthening their physicalstructure to almost the human normal, adapting themselves to earthlyspeech and habits, and in some strange manner intensifying even furthertheir mental powers.

  Or, to put it the other way around. These Tibetans, through theinjection of this unearthly blood, deteriorated slightly physically,lost the "soul" parts of their nature entirely, and developed abnormallyefficient intellects.

  However, through the centuries that followed, as the Hans spread overthe face of the earth, this unearthly strain in them not only becamemore dilute, but lost its potency; and in the end, the poison of itsubmerged the power of it, and earth's mankind came again intopossession of its inheritance.

  How all this may be, I do not know. It is merely a hypothesis over whichthe learned men of today quarrel.

  * * * * *

  But I do know that there was something inhuman about these Hans. And Ihad many months of intimate contact with them, and with their Emperor inAmerica. I can vouch for the fact that even in his most friendly andhuman moments, there was an inhumanity, or perhaps "unhumanity" abouthim that aroused in me that urge to kill.

  But whether or not there was in these people blood from outside thisplanet, the fact remains that they have been exterminated, that a trulyhuman civilization reigns once more--and that I am now a very tired oldman, waiting with no regrets for the call which will take me to anotherexistence.

  There, it is my hope and my conviction that my courageous mate of thosebloody days waits for me with loving arms.

  THE END

  Transcriber's Note:

  In this text the two prefixes _ultro-_ and _ultrono-_ have been applied inconsistently to much of the future technology. These discrepancies remain as printed.