by Eando Binder
They were creating a war legend destined to live in history. A possible suicide squad who had forgotten the word fear.
But it was not all miraculous. As Bruce had conjectured, the antiaircraft crews had been somewhat lax from continued safety. In a few minutes, the weaving, ducking, dancing pirate ships had destroyed one section of the ring of defense guns. Entering this wedge, they bored forward, peppering the domes beneath. The upper sections must already be filled with poisonous Jupiter air, strangling Martians running to their guns.
But retaliation came.
One pirate ship went down, half blown apart. Then another, and another—
With each ship casualty, Gorson both crowed within—and groaned. He wanted Bruce to lose, yet that would forfeit Gorson’s life. The fat mining magnate lived through a hell of mental torment.
Despite losses, the surviving pirate ships drilled on till every dome had been punctured. The swift, paralyzing attack spread quick disorganization, even among the cold, superbly trained Martians. They had been celebrating in advance, perhaps, the victory to come, as they believed. To see the heavens suddenly split open with the fire of death…
Bruce conjectured vaguely about these things. But one thought was dominant, one last ace in the hole, before the Martians won out by sheer superiority of armament.
One more mad thing he had to try.
In a daring swoop, he spun his ship down, past flicking searchlight beams and hissing proton-charges. He landed up against the blue central dome, out of the big guns’ range.
“Into your spacesuits, men,” he yelled. “We’re going to storm this dome.”
Jamming on his own spacesuit, Bruce eyed Gorson, who was still tied. “If I don’t come back, you won’t live to gloat. The Martians will blast this ship without knowing you’re aboard.”
Gorson blinked in craven fear.
Bruce repeated his order to storm the dome.
The Black Ace gasped over the radio. “That’s insanity, Bruce,” he panted.
“I thought you had nerve…”
It was all Bruce had to say. The Black Ace roared at his hesitating men, and a moment later the band of suited figures ran for the dome, blasted open the lock with hand-weapons, and charged in.
Not many Martians were in the lower quarters. Most had gone to man the guns above. The few of the enemy in the corridors died with the apparition of fierce, charging Earthmen as their last sight in life.
Bruce led the way, down through the scullery by which the Earth spy—or the fake Martian one—had once led him out. Then up again to where his prison cell had been. Wheeling past—though he thought of Dora and Dr. Kent—his force stormed its way to the central headquarters of High Commander Ru Molo.
A half dozen guards were before the door. They went down, taking three of Bruce’s men with them in death. And then Bruce leaped into the Martian commander’s office.
“Don’t move, Ru Molo,” warned Bruce grimly.
The Martian had started to leap for a side door, stopped. He peered into Bruce’s visor. “Jay Bruce,” he said almost calmly. “Something told me you were a dangerous man to let live. Well?”
He stood proudly, aware of his doom.
Bruce motioned to the wall of the room, which was taken up by the switchboard of the dome’s powerful radio transmitter. The operator there, at a silent cue from Ru Molo, leaped for the board. Bruce sent a proton-blast through his heart. He stopped, flung up his hands, and dropped with a choked death cry. His purpose, Bruce divined, had been to smash some mechanism, ruining it for transmission.
“Which is your radio man, Black Ace?” Bruce asked hurriedly. “Have him prepare for a call to go through on the all-wave.”
The pirate chief motioned one of his men forward and he ran quick fingers over the complicated board. Finally he turned, nodded.
Bruce picked up the microphone on Ru Molo’s desk.
“Attention all Earth, Venus, and Jupiter stations! This call is coming from a secret Martian war base, in the Red Spot. Put your tracers on this wave, and you’ll find the exact position. The Martian reinforcements for outer-planet battles have been coming from here. Send an Earth-Callisto raiding force immediately, or negotiate with the Jove government to have this war camp interned. It is a wartime violation of Jupiter’s neutrality.”
Bruce repeated the call several times for good measure.
But he knew the powerful wave must reach some Earth or Venus ear. And they wouldn’t be able to ignore it, as they might have a weaker call from a ship’s small transmitter. He could picture, in his mind’s eye, listeners here and there sitting up, astounded. Hurried messages shooting to headquarters. Perhaps even somewhere in a city on Jupiter, a Jovian operator was breathlessly reporting to his superiors…
No use to speculate. He turned from the microphone with a long sigh. This had been the supreme moment in all the mad adventure of the recent past.
Ru Molo stoically hid whatever searing thoughts were his. He must be feeling, Bruce reflected in a queer reversal of roles, like Bruce himself had felt on Earth, realizing he had helped the Martians unwittingly. Ru Molo had helped Earth by not killing Bruce when he had the chance, weeks before.
“You know,” said the Martian evenly, “that you won’t get out alive. Long before any Earth ships come, my men will kill you here. They are perhaps coming now.”
Bruce nodded. “There’s no more than a fighting chance for our lives. But we’ve done our part—exposed this base.”
The Martian’s face twisted a little. “You are a brave man, Jay Bruce. Now, may I ask that you…” He flicked his eyes to Bruce’s gun.
He was asking for death. Bruce knew how he felt. It would be a kindness…
“Just one thing, Ru Molo,” he asked. “Dr. Kent and his daughter?”
Again the Martian’s face twitched. “They are both quite well, under the circumstances. Dr. Kent held out against revealing his formula. In ways, you Earth people… He shook his head, gestured, murmured “Hail Kilku!”
Black Ace’s gun spat.
Bruce turned away from his sprawled body. Why must intelligent creatures war, kill one another?
“Damn,” breathed the Black Ace. “That Ginzie was a man.”
Bruce snapped alert, led the way back to what had been his former prison chamber. Blasting away the door’s lock, he shoved it open.
Dora came forward. The sweet-faced desirable Dora he had known before—not the false Dora of the return to Earth. Bruce lowered his visor and as they kissed, he knew that this was the supreme moment of his life.
Dr. Kent, a haunted, racked creature, hobbled forward, clutching his hand fervently. “I knew you’d come back for us,” he cried. “I knew you would. I held out against them.”
The Black Ace’s voice intervened. “Here they come. Barricade the door, men. We’ll show these damned Ginzies how to fight it out like men. And how to die.”
Dora looked aghast at Bruce. He patted her hand tenderly. “Yes, dear, you may as well know. It was a desperate game I played. I won up to now, by pure luck. But we can’t expect everything our way.”
Dr. Kent straightened his weary, bent body. Proudly he said, “We know how to die, too.”
And Dora stood just as proudly beside him, awaiting the final attack of the Martians.
Proton-blasts crashed lividly against the barricaded door from the hand weapons of the vengeful Martians. They wanted to exterminate the last of the mad Earthmen who had razed their camp, made fools of them.
Bruce, with his arm around Dora, grinned humorlessly. Let them have their little moment of victory. Soon after, they would be doomed in turn.
The door began to buckle, crack. Finally it gave way. Martians crowded forward, faces murderous. The pirates, shielding Bruce, Dora and Dr. Kent, stood in a solid phalanx, their weapons barking in a broadside.
The first wave of Martians went down. Others leaped over them, firing. Pirates fell. The end was inevitable. Bruce stood with Dora, calm before death.
In another moment…
Suddenly, from outside, sounded the ground-shaking thump of heavy bombing. The sound increased, became a deluge of battle noise. The camp had again been attacked—but by whom?
The Martians, incredulous, left the survivors, hastened to their guns. They didn’t know of the message Bruce had sent.
Startled, unbelieving, Bruce looked at Dora with eyes in which the light of joy sprang.
“Only the Jovians could have arrived at this spot so soon,” he yelled. “It must be them.”
A muffled groan from the floor interrupted him.
The Black Ace struggled up to his elbow, sole survivor among his brave men. His side was half torn away, bleeding profusely. He waved away their attempts to administer his wound.
“Never mind, I’m going,” he coughed. “Just want to say, Bruce—we sure showed those damned Ginzies…”
Blood gushed from his mouth. He fell back.
Bruce stared a long moment, then saluted the sprawled form. A one-time honest man turned pirate had turned honest again. His crimes would not be remembered as long as his feat against the Martian menace in the Red Spot.
* * * *
An hour later, the battle sounds died.
Bruce led Dora and her father out to his ship. Overhead circled craft with the Red Spot emblem—part of the great Jove Space Navy. Most of the Martian base lay in a ruined, smoking heap. Grounded Martian warships were junk heaps.
The Jovian commander contacted Bruce by radio.
“You are the Earthman who sent the message? We will escort you to our Capital. You have this day done a great deed for our world, as well as your own. You have exposed High Lord Kilku’s plot to stab us in the back and eventually rule us, too.”
It wasn’t long after that the report came through from a Ganymede station.
“Flash! The Jupiter government has just formally declared war on Mercury and Mars. Part of the Jovian forces have already gone to the defense of the Earth fleet near Callisto, driving the Martians back.
“The rest of the great Jove space forces are winging toward the Asteroids to break the Martian blockade. The siege of Earth is breaking apart. The Mercury-Mars Axis has failed in its much-vaunted lightning war. It is doubtful that they can stand a long war on equal military terms with the Earth-Venus-Jupiter Coalition.
“It may be too early to say it, but High Lord Kilku of Mars, would-be master of the Solar System, hasn’t got the chance of an ice cube in the sun.”
And Gorson’s chances were even less, Bruce reflected. He had turned the whimpering mining magnate over to the Jovian authorities as part of the Martian Espionage plot that had planted an insidious war-base on the sovereign soil of Jupiter.
“Take me to Earth in a hurry,” said Dr. Kent, rubbing his hands together gleefully. “I’ll have that new alloy ready in no time. If the Martians hang on another month, they’ll see some of the fastest ships…
But Bruce and Dora weren’t listening to him, exactly. They were looking with shining eyes into the future. A future that, by the hand of Providence, held much of glorious promise for all peoples as well as for themselves.