Outside the trusted official experts of the Government, nobody knows of them except the Futuremen. But it can be said that they represented prodigies of planning, and labor and equipment such as only a dictatorial government with many worlds under its sway could command. The completion of the action involved the use of an entire planetoid that, moving through Dimension X to a position approximating that of Asteroid No. 697, was then bodily shifted over.
Six fighting spacecraft, no more than cruiser class but heavily armed with weapons designed under Ul Quorn’s supervision to fight and destroy Solar System forces, hovered in the dim-lighted ether of Dimension X. Before them yawned a seeming black emptiness, a true hole in emptiness.
“In,” came the order of the Commander, Thai Thar, over his speaker system.
“In,” echoed the senior officers of the other ships.
One after another, the craft whisked into the emptiness, negotiating the dizzy change from dimension to dimension, and dropped down upon the quiet surface that was no longer identifiable as the captured asteroid.
“All out!” Thai Thar was commanding, and the six crews poured into the open.
The followings drew up before Thai Thar.
“Have the men stack arms,” he ordered.
Three of the junior commanders stared. They were Ul Quorn’s lieutenants drawn from the Solar System, a little nervous because their chief was reported in confinement — Captain Future, rumor had it, had made a fool of him once again. They wanted to counterbalance Ul Quorn’s disgrace by a bold stroke into invasion territory.
“What does this mean?” asked an officer.
“Stack arms!” repeated Thai Thar. “Assemble the men before me in close order. I have important things to say.”
It was done. The invasion force, several hundred Pale People, drew up expectantly on smooth ground between fungoid thickets. The rank and file was of the lower order, gnomelike little men with long arms, bandy legs and apelike posture.
Junior officers were of the aristocrat class like Thai Thar, resembling handsome but blanched Earthmen. To one side, as directed, were gathered the weapons — rifles, tendril-spitting devices, and agonizing light-casters that could blind eyes not fitted to endure the glare.
“Junior officers fall out and guard the stacked arms,” said Thai Thar.
AT THIS, one of the subordinates objected.
“That’s not according to plan,” growled one of Ul Quorn’s henchmen. “This is no time for lectures. Already the observatories on Earth and Mars may have learned that an asteroid has slipped away between dimensions. Cruisers will be heading this way. We ought to set up shifts to get into their dimension, ready to grab them and carry out the next phase of our conquest.”
“You’re insubordinate,” snapped Thai Thar, and the fellow subsided. Thai Thar faced the close ranks of Pale People.
“You are all prisoners of war,” he announced.
Instantly the junior officers seized weapons from the stacks and came to the ready. On the opposite side, figures stole forth from the thickets — figures in space-suits with police insignia, Earthmen and Martians and others, armed and tense.
The quickest witted of Ul Quorn’s men sprang at Thai Thar. Somebody laughed in his ear. He knew that laugh — and then he knew nothing as the big fist of Captain Future knocked him spinning into senselessness.
“Anybody else want to argue?” inquired Captain Future. “No? Ezra, these specimens are Ul Quorn’s gutter-sweepings, who hoped to be heroes of his sneak invasion. Take them into custody.”
Thai Thar smiled at the leaderless, bewildered rank and file.
“This part of the war is over,” he said for all to hear. “I shall now tell what the Overlord planned for our group.” He paused. “Will you judge by what I say.”
“Talk, Thai Thar,” ventured someone. “You have always been fair.”
“Perhaps that was my downfall,” continued Thai Thar. “The Overlord hates me and the class for which I stand, the old leadership that hoped to make the best of our dimming, dying system. I was assigned here, and these officers with me, to die in the first battles and interfere with the Overlord’s power-dreams no more. For you rank and file, he cared not one way or the other. You were assigned at random to dead men’s duty. While we fought a surprise action, drawing the defending fleet toward one point, another force — led by his favorites — would burst through to reap the fruits of invasion of the defenseless principal bases. We would be sacrificed. That often happens to advance parties.”
“Is that true?” blubbered Ul Quorn’s quickest-minded man to Captain Future. “Were we to be killed off?”
“Why not?” smiled Captain Future.
“But he said — he promised — honors, riches!”
“Bah!” growled his neighbor. “Stop and think how often he’s used and deserted men he needed no more.”
The first speaker made a grimace.
“Why, that vile trickster!”
Ezra Gurney hustled them away.
Thai Thar concluded his remarks.
“Because there has been from the first a group opposing the Overlord, spying on his secrets and anticipating his moves, we were able to plan a counter-stroke. The defenders against this invasion have no sure knowledge of us, and only picked men among them even knew of the danger. My friends and I are working with those picked men. We shall go back — and the Overlord shall be the Overlord no more.”
“And we?” ventured one of the prisoners.
“You shall be kept here, prisoners of war. There is no need for you to worry, and you can serve no purpose by striking for one side or the other.”
Thai Thar turned to Captain Future.
“Ready, my friend. Will you take command in my flagship?”
Captain Future shook his flaming head.
“With your permission, there’s a new flagship — over there among the thickets. The Comet leads the counterattack.”
Chapter 13: The Fleets Clash
DIMENSION X, with its vast airless space, was not velvet-black, as in the other dimensions Captain Future knew — it had a grayness like an old blanket in a dingy, unlighted room. There were stars, but not bright stars. They hung and glowed dully, sometimes waxing or waning a trifle, like half-dead sparks on the blanket.
“Our universe is old, inconceivably older, than yours,” said Thai Thar, who was standing beside Captain Future in the Comet’s control room. “So much of its matter has become radiation that the radiation gives an actual tinge to space. And there is no single sun which burns even a fair fraction so clear and hot as those you tell me of in your own space-latitudes.”
Future looked into the telaudio screen.
“You have many dwarf suns, almost burnt out,” he answered with a nod. “Many of your dark stars render your universe unfit for habitation for us. Up ahead — that’s your own string of worlds, isn’t it?”
“Yes, somewhat like yours, I judge. And our sun — its remains — can be seen beyond.”
The sun showed dim and blue. Future’s big hand joggled a moment with spectro-finders. They gave fuzzy reactions — Dimension X did that to all his equipment — but Future could see that there were no elements in the sun he did not know. He recognized certain vibrating patterns, and a germ of inspiration came to him.
“Directly ahead, hovering,” continued Thai Thar, “is the second fleet, the fleet that was to come through and triumph while my own ships sacrificed themselves against your Solar System defenses.”
The screen showed a cluster of dull-silver specks toward the front, and a further, smaller cluster away to the left — two ship groups, idling in space. Captain Future knew that these craft were armed for battle with Ul Quorn’s weapons, that they were manned with picked and chosen officers and hands, loyal to the Overlord and keyed up to desperation and audacity. Too, they outnumbered his own forces considerably. He saw that at a glance.
“The nearer group includes nine war craft, each with smaller scout ships in it
s hold — one-man and five-man craft,” said Thai Thar, as if reading his thoughts. “The other, eleven. With the six that I brought, and your own Comet and seven police craft, we have fourteen against their twenty.”
“And they won’t be dazzled into submission by bright lights, will they?” rejoined Captain Future, “They were riding prepared for battle in the full glare of my universe.”
“Of course. Goggles and dimmed ports and all that, as with my force. Fighting will be with guns and rays of your own culture designed and manufactured under the direction of Ul Quorn. There will be fighting, won’t there?”
“There will,” promised Captain Future, switching on the telaudio speech system. “Attention, all ship commanders. Controls and weapon stations to be manned by Solar System personnel. Dimension X personnel to observe — they know these latitudes best. Gurney, take point position. Head to left of nearer enemy group. Full speed on.”
“Who is that?” demanded someone on the receiver system, in the burbling language of Dimension X which Captain Future, with his peerlessly trained adaptability, had begun to pick up from the beginning of the adventure. “Thai Thar, why did your ships fall back? Answer me!”
Nobody answered. The combined forces of Thai Thar’s group and the police cruisers quickly slid into “dart” formation — Ezra Gurney’s raking, speedy craft leading, then the Comet in command position, then the others two by two, blasts open, speeds checking or increasing to equality throughout.
Like an arrow from a macrocosmic bow, the formation drove forward — not at the nearest enemy group, but toward a point well to the left, a point between the enemy formations.
This was elementary strategy for Captain Future. His force was smaller in number of craft, and not overmanned, for he had had to divide the crews of the police ships to operate Thai Thar’s vessels, but the weapons which would decide the battle were weapons which his personnel knew to the hilt, and elements of surprise and plan were on his side.
If he could get between the enemy units, their superior numbers might not be effective — bold, intelligent action might carry the day.
HE SIGHED as his big hands moved musician-wise over the Comet’s intricate controls. If his brother Futuremen were here — lightning-coordinated Otho, brilliant Simon Wright, Grag, the indomitable and massive-limbed — yes, and Joan, who seemed all gentleness and loveliness, but whose resolute courage was not inferior to his own — where were they? How imprisoned, how threatened? Captain Future swore in his heart to save them all, even from the innermost prison of the Overlord.
“Answer!” repeated the strange voice from the receiver. “Or we open fire.”
Even in this deadly moment of crisis, part of Captain Future’s brain could meditate. He now reflected that the strange tongue of Dimension X was partially understandable to him because, basically, it derived from the universal Denebian language of all humanoid creatures in all universes and dimensions. The parent stock from far Deneb had peopled everywhere. This fact was beyond common science or rationality.
There must be a plan, cosmically involving all worlds and spaces, that included a final assurance of what was right and good, what was wrong and evil. Captain Future knew an instant of confidence in the outcome of the fight that was, paradoxically, almost serene.
“Open fire,” he commanded into the transmitter. “All long-range arms.”
Thai Thar corrected the telaudio vision-viewpoint for him. Now he could see, as in a miniature scale-drawing come to life, both his own dart-formation and the two enemy groups, as if from a point apart from all three.
The nearer enemy still idled, though the ships seemed to tremble and huddle, like indecisive girls at the edge of a ballroom before the music strikes up and partners claim them. The further group was going into action, commencing an approach. The commander of that unit had grasped an inkling of what was about to happen. His ships were moving swiftly to join their sister force.
If the near group retreated, effected a junction — but Captain Future’s ships were firing.
With speed and telaudio and direction-instruments able to accomplish what they did in space, the battle began at a distance comparable to that between Earth and Moon. The vision-screen of the Comet shortened apparent distances, made everything seem compact. Rays and proton bombs cut great pyrotechnic streaks through the musty ether of Dimension X, scoring on targets afar, but not strongly enough to cripple — only to disconcert. There was a replying spray of flame, but the enemy was unfamiliar with Ul Quorn’s weapons, and not a single hit was scored.
From the receiver came the strange voice again, giving its own orders:
“Retreat. Join Group Two and form to repel attack.”
That must not be allowed, Captain Future quickly told himself. The two units must be kept apart, defeated in detail. He barked orders of his own.
“Gurney! Continue with advance and attack plan. All other ships, maintain formation and follow Gurney. I’ll meet you there.”
His hand dropped below the control board to other controls, which he and the other Futuremen alone understood properly — the space-warping principle that could shift the Comet from point to point across the limitless miles swifter than light.
He turned from the master microphone to the ship speaker.
“Hang on!” he cried. “This will be abrupt!” Then he touched a key, and another.
A whip of motion and a buzzing assailment of every, physical fiber, rather like the dimension-shift. Then there he was — there the Comet was — alone in airlessness and between the two enemy groups — nine bearing down from the right, and eleven, a little more distant but cutting the distance fast, on the left.
“Open fire starboard and port,” he commanded on the ship speaker, and his man did.
Rays and projectiles spattered the incoming enemy craft like handfuls of sand thrown in the eyes of charging beasts. After a moment, which the opposing commanders must have needed to adjust themselves to this new situation, came the reply.
CAPTAIN FUTURE thought, as the multitude of impacts all but jarred him from his controls, of all that had gone into the making of the Comet. Not only the engines and instruments and controls that made her the swiftest, furthest-ranging, most efficient craft for exploration that the universe had known, but the peerlessly deadly weapons and perfect armor that made her the last word and the last syllable in fighting power.
She’d be going to pieces now, under the bombardment of twenty war craft, but for those vibration-absorbing elements in her plating. And he had made the Comet, he and his friends, and now their work gave a fighting chance to all the worlds against destruction.
“They’re cutting speed,” gasped Thai Thar, also bracing himself against the shock-shock-shock of the bombardment. “They must, to hit us — and they are hitting us, again, again — but our fire scores, too.”
Future was by the telaudio screen.
“Here comes Gurney, and the rest!” he cried.
The moments had been saved, enough for his force to cross the space and needle in between the enemy units. Captain Future leaned toward the master transmitter.
“All craft! Follow Plan G-Six!”
They knew what Plan G-6 was. They changed formation as they came up with the Comet, two lines of ships that staggered their order further and became a disc-shaped formation, like a curtain hanging between the two Dimension X forces.
At Captain Future’s word this curtain moved left, firing with all arms against the larger, more remote enemy group. Two of the eleven opposing ships disintegrated in varicolored fountains of sparks, beautiful and terrible.
A third spun back out of action, crippled and rudderless.
A fourth retreated, its weapons silenced by the shock of a ray-explosion that wrecked its controls.
The seven remaining craft also drew back, trying to reform for defense — and with abrupt, disciplined blast-reversals, the curtain of Captain Future’s fleet threw itself in the opposite direction full at the second th
reat.
Again at a word from Captain Future the formation changed. The inner ships of the disc lagged a bit and the outer speeded up, so that the disc became a saucer.
Opening order as it came close, that saucer scooped up the smaller and more compact enemy.
With deadly accuracy, Captain Future’s twenty ships opened fire on the nine adversaries.
It was over within seconds. Ship after ship of the Dimension X force fluffed into a brief glow of incandescence, and then into dead nothingness. Four of the nine were smashed, then five, then seven. The last two tried to escape. A final fusillade finished them.
“Form to pursue the others,” Captain Future was ordering by microphone. “No, they won’t wait to fight. They run like rock-rats on Callisto. Who’s been hit, Thai Thar?”
TWO of the fleet were gone, one police craft disintegrated and one of Thai Thar’s badly damaged.
“Start repairs, we’ll need her,” continued Captain Future. “Gurney, take the two nearest ships with you. Scoop up the damaged enemy craft, the two that can’t get away. We’ll refit them and spare enough men from among us to fly and fight them.”
He took time to sigh, and grin at Thai Thar.
“How did those twenty ships think to conquer my whole home system?” he demanded. “We beat them, outnumbered almost two to one. This invasion was insignificant.”
“It was only beginning,” Thai Thar told him. “Look in your screen.”
Captain Future obeyed. His eyes widened, his jaw-muscles grew tense.
“The — the size of the thing!” he cried. “Is it an illusion?”
“Just as big as you judge it to be,” said Thai Thar.
“But what is it? A giant fighting ship? Or a dirigible world?”
“Both,” Thai Thar replied. “And it’s coming to attack us.”
Chapter 14: The Lair of the Overlord
CLUMSILY moving into combat, with a slowness that was calculated rather than unwieldy, came a craft which was a slightly ovate sphere, like a fat egg. Its narrowest diameter was a little less than a mile, its greatest a little more. Captain Future, at the telaudio, saw no rocket blasts — it must have been working on nameless atomic impulses, nothing else could possibly propel such a bulk, but it was studded with countless cockpits, weapon ports and observation traps.
Captain Future 20 - The Solar Invasion (Fall 1946) Page 9