He dropped the torch and dove under the tank, just as the whole structure caved in.
“Barbara!” He picked himself out of the wreckage, looking wildly into the hurricane that blew around him. “Barbara, are you all right?”
She crawled from the battered tank and into his arms. “Our car won’t go anymore,” she said shakily. The engine hood was split open by a falling beam and oil hissed from the cracked block.
“No matter. Let’s see how the boys are doing—”
He led a run across the field, staggering in the wind. A chunk of concrete whizzed by his head and he dropped as one of the guard towers went by. Good boys! They’d gone out and dynamited it!
Ignoring the ramp leading down to the garage, Fernandez had brought his tank up to the shell’s main air lock for humans. It was sturdily built, but his snorting monster walked through it. Breathable air gasped out. It sleeted a little as formaldehyde took up water vapor and became solid.
No time to check on the rest of the battle outside, you could only hope the men assigned to that task were doing their job properly. Hollister saw one of his tanks go up under a direct hit. All the towers weren’t disabled yet. But he had to get into the shell.
“Stay here, Barbara!” he ordered. Men were swarming from their vehicles. He led the way inside. A group of uniformed corpses waited for him, drying and shriveling even as he watched. He snatched the carbines from them and handed them out to the nearest of his followers. The rest would have to make do with their tools till more weapons could be recovered.
Automatic bulkheads had sealed off the rest of the shell. Hollister blasted through the first one. A hail of bullets from the smoking hole told him that the guards within had had time to put on their suits.
He waved an arm. “Bring up Maria Larga!”
It took awhile, and he fumed and fretted. Six partisans trundled the weapon forth. It was a standard man-drawn cart for semiportable field equipment, and Long Mary squatted on it: a motor-driven blower connected with six meters of hose, an air blast. This one had had an oxygen bottle and a good-sized fuel tank hastily attached to make a superflamethrower. Fernandez got behind the steel plate which had been welded in front as armor, and guided it into the hole. The man behind whooped savagely and turned a handle. Fire blew forth, and the compartment was flushed out.
There were other quarters around the cell block, which came next, but Hollister ignored them for the time being. The air lock in this bulkhead had to be opened the regular way, only two men could go through at a time, and there might be guards on the other side. He squeezed in with San Rafael and waited until the pump cleaned out the chamber. Then he opened the inner door a crack, tossed a homemade shrapnel grenade, and came through firing.
He stumbled over two dead men beyond. San Rafael choked and fell as a gun spat farther down the corridor. Hollister’s .45 bucked in his hand. Picking himself up, he looked warily down the cruelly bright length of the block. No one else. The convicts were yammering like wild animals.
He went back, telling off a few men to cut the prisoners out of their cells, issue airsuits from the lockers, and explain the situation. Then he returned to the job of cleaning out the rest of the place.
It was a dirty and bloody business. He lost ten men in all. There were no wounded: if a missile tore open a suit, that was the end of the one inside. A small hole would have given time to slap on an emergency patch, but the guards were using magnum slugs.
Fernandez sought him out to report that an attempt to get away by rocket had been stopped, but that an indeterminate number of holdouts were in the refinery, which was a separate building. Hollister walked across the field, dust whirling about smashed machines, and stood before the smaller shell.
Thomas’ voice crackled in his earphones: “You there! What is the meaning of this?”
That was too much. Hollister began to laugh. He laughed so long he thought perhaps he was going crazy.
Sobering, he replied in a chill tone: “We’re taking over. You’re trapped in there with nothing but small arms. We can blast you out if we must, but you’d do better to surrender.”
Thomas, threateningly: “This place is full of radioactivity, you know. If you break in, you’ll smash down the shielding—or we’ll do it for you—and scatter the stuff everywhere. You won’t live a week.”
It might be a bluff—“All right,” said Hollister with a cheerful note, “you’re sealed in without food or water. We can wait. But I thought you’d rather save your own lives.”
“You’re insane! You’ll be wiped out—”
“That’s our affair. Anytime you want out, pick up the phone and call the office. You’ll be locked in the cells with supplies enough for a while when we leave.” Hollister turned and walked away.
He spent the next few hours reorganizing; he had to whip the convicts into line, though when their first exuberance had faded they were for the most part ready to join him. Suddenly his army had swelled to more than two hundred. The barracks were patched up and made habitable, munitions were found and passed about, the transport and supply inventoried. Then word came that Thomas’ handful were ready to surrender. Hollister marched them into the cell block and assigned some convicts to stand watch.
He had had every intention of abiding by his agreement, but when he was later wakened from sleep with the news that his guards had literally torn the prisoners apart, he didn’t have the heart to give them more than a dressing-down.
“Now,” he said to his council of war, “we’d better get rolling again. Apparently we were lucky enough so that no word of this has leaked out, but it’s a long way yet to New America.”
“We have not transportation for more than a hundred,” said Fernandez.
“I know. We’ll take the best of the convicts; the rest will just have to stay behind. They may be able to pull the same trick on the next supply train that our boys in Last Chance have ready for the rocket—or they may not. In any event, I don’t really hope they can last out, or that we’ll be able to take the next objective unawares—but don’t tell anyone that.”
“I suppose not,” said Fernandez somberly, “but it is a dirty business.”
“War is always a dirty business,” said Hollister.
He lost a whole day organizing his new force. Few if any of the men knew how to shoot, but the guns were mostly recoilless and automatic so he hoped some damage could be done; doctrine was to revert to construction equipment, which they did know how to use, in any emergency. His forty Latins were a cadre of sorts, distributed among the sixty convicts in a relationship equivalent to that between sergeant and private. The whole unit was enough to make any military man break out in a cold sweat, but it was all he had.
Supply wagons were reloaded and machine guns mounted on a few of the tanks. He had four Venusian days to get to New America and take over—and if the rebels arrived too soon, police reinforcements would pry them out again, and if the radio-control systems were ruined in the fighting, the ferries couldn’t land.
It was not exactly a pleasant situation.
The first rocket was sighted on the fifth day of the campaign. It ripped over, crossing from horizon to horizon in a couple of minutes, but there was little doubt that it had spotted them. Hollister led his caravan off the plain, into broken country which offered more cover but would slow them considerably. Well, they’d just have to keep going day and night.
The next day it was an armored, atomic-powered monster which lumbered overhead, supplied with enough energy to go slowly and even to hover for a while. In an atmosphere without oxygen and always riven by storms, the aircraft of Earth weren’t possible—no helicopters, no leisurely airboats; but a few things like this one had been built as emergency substitutes. Hollister tuned in his radio, sure it was calling to them.
“Identify yourselves! This is the Guardian Corps.”
Hollister adapted his earlier lie, not expecting belief—but every minute he stalled, his tank lurched forward another hundr
ed meters or so.
The voice was sarcastic: “And of course, you had nothing to do with the attack on Lucifer?”
“What attack?”
“That will do! Go out on the plain and set up camp till we can check on you.”
“Of course,” said Hollister meekly. “Signing off.”
From now on, it was strict radio silence in his army. He’d gained a good hour, though, since the watchers wouldn’t be sure till then that he was disobeying—and a lovely dust storm was blowing up.
Following plan, the tanks scattered in pairs, each couple for itself till they converged on New America at the agreed time. Some would break down, some would be destroyed en route, some would come late—a few might even arrive disastrously early—but there was no choice. Hollister was reasonably sure none would desert him; they were all committed past that point.
He looked at Barbara. Her face was tired and drawn, the red hair hung lusterless and tangled to her shoulders, dust and sweat streaked her face, but he thought she was very beautiful. “I’m sorry to have dragged you into this,” he said.
“It’s all right, dear. Of course I’m scared, but I’m still glad.”
He kissed her for a long while and then slapped his helmet down with a savage gesture.
The first bombs fell toward sunset. Hollister saw them as flashes through the dust, and felt their concussion rumble in the frame of his tank. He steered into a narrow, overhung gulch, his companion vehicle nosing close behind. There were two convicts in it—Johnson and Waskowicz—pretty good men, he thought, considering all they had been through.
Dust and sand were his friends, hiding him even from the infrared scopes above which made nothing of mere darkness. The rough country would help a lot, too. It was simply a matter of driving day and night, sticking close to bluffs and gullies, hiding under attack and then driving some more. He was going to lose a number of his units, but thought the harassing would remain aerial till they got close to New America. The Guardians wouldn’t risk their heavy stuff unnecessarily at any great distance from home.
VIII
The tank growled around a high pinnacle and faced him without warning. It was a military vehicle, and cannons swiveled to cover his approach.
Hollister gunned his machine and drove directly up the pitted road at the enemy. A shell burst alongside him, steel splinters rang on armor. Coldly, he noted for possible future reference the relatively primitive type of Venusian war equipment: no tracker shells, no Rovers. He had already planned out what to do in an encounter like this, and told his men the idea—now it had happened to him.
The Guardian tank backed, snarling. It was not as fast or as maneuverable as his, it was meant for work close to cities where ground had been cleared. A blast of high-caliber machine-gun bullets ripped through the cab, just over his head. Then he struck. The shock jammed him forward even as his grapple closed jaws on the enemy’s nearest tread.
“Out!” he yelled. Barbara snatched open the air lock and fell to the stones below. Hollister was after her. He flung a glance behind. His other tank was an exploded ruin, canted to one side, but a single figure was crawling from it, rising, zigzagging toward him. There was a sheaf of dynamite sticks in one hand. The man flopped as the machine gun sought him and wormed the last few meters. Waskowicz. “They got Sam,” he reported, huddling against the steel giant with his companions. “Shall we blast her?”
Hollister reflected briefly. The adversary was immobilized by the transport vehicle that clutched it bulldog fashion. He himself was perfectly safe this instant, just beneath the guns. “I’ve got a better notion. Gimme a boost.”
He crawled up on top, to the turret lock. “Okay, hand me that torch. I’m going to cut my way in!”
The flame roared, biting into metal. Hollister saw the lock’s outer door move. So—just as he had expected—the lads inside wanted out! He paused. A suited arm emerged with a grenade. Hollister’s torch slashed down. Barbara made a grab for the tumbling missile and failed. Waskowicz tackled her, landing on top. The thing went off.
Was she still alive—? Hollister crouched so that the antenna of his suit radio pocked into the lock. “Come out if you want to live. Otherwise I’ll burn you out.”
Sullenly, the remaining three men appeared, hands in the air. Hollister watched them slide to the ground, covering them with his pistol. His heart leaped within him when he saw Barbara standing erect. Waskowicz was putting an adhesive patch on his suit where a splinter had ripped it.
“You okay?” asked Hollister.
“Yeah,” grunted the convict. “Pure dumb luck. Now what?”
“Now we got us one of their own tanks. Somebody get inside and find some wire or something to tie up the Terrible Three here. And toss out the fourth.”
“That’s murder!” cried one of the police. “We’ve only got enough oxy for four hours in these suits—”
“Then you’ll have to hope the battle is over by then,” said Hollister unsympathetically. He went over and disentangled the two machines.
The controls of the captured tank were enough like those of the ordinary sort for Barbara to handle. Hollister gave Waskowicz a short lecture on the care and feeding of machine guns, and sat up by the 40mm cannon himself; perforce, they ignored the 20. They closed the lock but didn’t bother to replenish the air inside; however, as Hollister drove up the mountainside, Waskowicz recharged their oxygen bottles from the stores inside the vehicle.
The battle was already popping when they nosed up onto the ledge and saw the great sweep of the city. Drifting dust limited his vision, but Hollister saw his own machines and the enemy’s. Doctrine was to ram and grapple the military tank, get out and use dynamite or torches, and then worm toward the colony’s main air lock. It might have to be blown open, but bulkheads should protect the civilians within.
An engineer tank made a pass at Hollister’s. He turned aside, realizing that his new scheme had its own drawbacks. Another police machine came out of the dust; its guns spoke, the engineers went up in a flash and a bang, and then it had been hit from behind. Hollister wet his teeth and went on. It was the first time he had seen anything like war; he had an almost holy sense of his mission to prevent this from striking Earth again.
The whole operation depended on his guess that there wouldn’t be many of the enemy. There were only a few Guardians in each town, who wouldn’t have had time or reserves enough to bring in a lot of reinforcements; and tanks couldn’t be flown in. But against their perhaps lesser number was the fact that they would fight with tenacity and skill. Disciplined as engineers and convicts were, they simply did not have the training—even the psychological part of it which turns frightened individuals into a single selfless unit. They would tend to make wild attacks and to panic when the going got rough—which it was already.
He went on past the combat, towards the main air lock. Dim shapes began to appear through scudding dust. Half a dozen mobile cannon were drawn up in a semicircle to defend the gate. That meant—all the enemy tanks, not more than another six or seven, out on the ledge fighting the attackers.
“All right,” Hollister’s voice vibrated in their earphones. “We’ll shoot from here. Barbara, move her in a zigzag at 10 KPH, keeping about this distance; let out a yell if you think you have to take other evasive action. Otherwise I might hit the city.”
He jammed his faceplate into the rubberite viewscope and his hands and feet sought the gun controls. Crosshairs—range—fire one! The nearest cannon blew up.
Fire two! Fire three! His 40 reloaded itself. Second gun broken, third a clean miss—Fire four! Gotcha!
A rank of infantry appeared, their suits marked with the Guardian symbol. They must have been flown here. Waskowicz blazed at them and they broke, falling like rag dolls, reforming to crawl in. They were good soldiers. Now the other three enemy mobiles were swiveling about, shooting through the dust. “Get us out of here, Barbara!”
The racket became deafening as they backed into the concea
ling murk. Another enemy tank loomed before them. Hollister fed it two shells almost point blank.
If he could divert the enemy artillery long enough for his men to storm the gate—
He saw a police tank locked with an attacker, broken and dead. Hollister doubted if there were any left in action now. He saw none of his own vehicles moving, though he passed by the remnants of several. And where were his men?
Shock threw him against his webbing. The echoes rolled and banged and shivered for a long time. His head swam. The motors still turned, but—
“I think they crippled us,” said Barbara in a small voice.
“Okay. Let’s get out of here.” Hollister sighed; it had been a nice try, and had really paid off better than he’d had a right to expect. He scrambled to the lock, gave Barbara a hand, and they slid to the ground as the three fieldpieces rolled into view on their self-powered carts.
The stalled tank’s cannon spoke, and one of the police guns suddenly slumped. “Waskowicz!” Barbara’s voice was shrill in the earphones. “He stayed in there—”
“We can’t save him. And if he can fight our tank long enough—Build a monument to him someday. Now come on!” Hollister led the way into curtaining gloom. The wind hooted and clawed at him.
As he neared the main lock, a spatter of rifle fire sent him to his belly. He couldn’t make out who was there, but it had been a ragged volley—take a chance on their being police and nailing him—“Just us chickens, boss!” he shouted. Somewhere in a corner of his mind he realized that there was no reason for shouting over a radio system. His schooled self-control must be slipping a bit.
“Is that you, Simon?” Fernandez’s voice chattered in his ears. “Come quickly now, we’re at the lock but I think they will attack soon.”
Hollister wiped the dust from his faceplate and tried to count how many there were. Latins and convicts, perhaps twenty—“Are there more?” he inquired. “Are you the last?”
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