by Bill Baldwin
Brim turned his head and peered through the thick armored glass as they roared past blackened shells of suburban homes, windows and top-story doors gaping hideously like open mouths caught forever in the great gasp of death. No sense of surprise clouded his mind's eye, only disgust. Triannic's invaders laid their cableway with the typical arrogance of all conquerors: Burning their right-of-way straight as a die through the city with no regard whatsoever for the hapless victims in its path.
The neatly spaced ruins with their pitifully blackened gardens and skeleton trees continued for a considerable distance, eventually giving way to shrub-lined fields dotted with tall, dome-capped structures — some connected by fantastic lace-like webs shimmering in the afternoon sun. Nowhere did he see the planet's winged inhabitants aloft. He pondered momentarily on this, then quickly dismissed it. He had plenty of other concerns to solve before he tackled that!
Swiveling in his seat, he looked out the opposite side of his control cabin and across the broad expanse of stained, tree-rumpled metal that formed the front of the vehicle. Fragonard's huge disruptor loomed overhead, pointing their course like a stubby veined finger with three sets of grooved anti-flash shields circling its tip. To starboard, tall, closely spaced buildings replaced the domes, then mixed with residences — these of clearly diminished promise, but whole nonetheless, having glazed windows to flash back the brilliant sunlight as Brim's heavy vehicles rushed past.
Presently, they came upon the banks of a broad canal and took up a new heading atop a moss-covered seawall whose age-blackened stones looked easily twice the size of the mobile field piece in which they rode. They whizzed past a string of rotting pilings out on the water covered with green braids of hairlike moss. The pilings curved abruptly from the seawall and terminated at a tumbledown pier before a crumbling brick structure of uncertain purpose. On the far shore, Brim could see rows of ramshackle warehouses fronted by networks of wooden piers extending far out into the stream — but few water craft anywhere: mute testimony to the ruined commerce of the conquered world.
They soon flashed across a connecting waterway, the exposed cable suspended in an arch by rusty wire bundles attached to the tips of tall pylons paired at opposite sides of the stream. With the speeding field pieces balancing themselves above the cable and wire bundles flashing by on either side at regular intervals, Brim got the definite perception that he was sitting at the controls of a flying brick.
Then abruptly they were thundering wildly along a narrow, shadowed thoroughfare between two close-set rows of giant buildings faced with panels of dreary color decorating vast expanses of featureless wall.
Emerging again into the sunlight, they sped steadily along the stone seawall until the canal itself ended in a great lagoon. Their cable — and travel — diverged, however, in a sharp curve to the right, continuing uninterrupted through marshes and tidelands near the shore until they passed a second dark canyon of buildings in a streaming blur, this much longer than the first. Then suddenly, far off to port, Brim caught sight of a stupendous arch bridge rising gracefully at least a thousand irals into the afternoon sky before it descended again in the hazy distance on the other side of the lagoon.
“Lieutenant Brim! Lieutenant Brim!”, an excited voice broke into his thoughts, “I think we've picked up a few extra vehicles to the rear! I can't see how many, but a couple at least.”
Instantly alert, Brim frowned at an image of Yeoman Fronze in the last vehicle.
“What do they look like?” he asked.
“Don't exactly know how to describe 'em, Lieutenant,” the woman said, looking off to one side. She squinted, frowned. “Big, for sure. An' squatty, like a roach or somethin',” she reported. “They're kind of keepin' their distance right now.”
“Ask her if they're square shaped like this one, or long, sir,” Barbousse urged from the driver's seat.
Brim relayed the question.
“Long,” Fronze stated emphatically. “With three turrets. A big one to starboard and two on the port side facin' fore and aft.”
“Sound like RT-9Is to me,” Barbousse pronounced. “About the best the League manufactures,” he added.
“Comforting to know those League people are more than 'a day's march away,'“ Brim snorted, then established connection with the Colonel's personnel carrier.
“Well?” Hagbut demanded.
“Someone seems to be following us along the cable, Colonel,” Brim reported. “Were we scheduled to rendezvous with other captured vehicles from Prosperous — RT-91 types, perhaps?”
Hagbut's brow wrinkled. “Negative,” he said. “You've seen these RT—91s with your own eyes?”
“They've only been reported to me, Colonel,” Brim answered. “But I have no reason to question…” He was interrupted by a glowing blue-green geyser that shot skyward about five hundred irals out in the lagoon. The huge waterspout immediately burst about five hundred irals to his left with terrific flame and concussion.
“Don't bother, Brim,” Hagbut blustered. “I could see that!” He immediately bawled a string of orders over his shoulder and the troop carriers began to accelerate, soon outdistancing the lumbering field pieces by a considerable margin.
Brim winced as a second explosion leveled a large row of warehouses to his right in a cloud of dirty flame and flying debris. So much for doing the mission in “invisible” captured equipment, he thought. The xaxtdamned ruse hadn't worked as long as a single watch! He shrugged phlegmatically. At least the Leaguers weren't having much luck with their ranging shots.
“I have ordered the troop carriers forward, Brim,” Hagbut boomed from the display globe. “To insure the integrity of my mission.”
Brim nodded. “Aye, sir,” he said.
“Not to mention the integrity of your bloody skin,” Barbousse muttered under his breath. “Beggin' the Lieutenant's pardon.”
“What was that?” Hagbut demanded.
“The local grass, sir,” Brim said, desperately stifling a laugh. “Starman Barbousse suffers a violent sneezing reaction.”
“Poor fellow,” Hagbut pronounced as another explosion destroyed an island of trees a few hundred irals to port. “Damn Leaguers never could seal a driving compartment.”
“No, sir.”
“It is now your duty, Brim, to stop the bastards,” Hagbut continued in what must have been his best pontifical voice. “Use those cannons soon as you can.” He turned in the display for a moment to bark more orders at someone, then swung back to Brim. “Catch up to us when you've stopped whoever it is back there — but not before. Understand? We cannot compromise the mission!”
“I understand, Colonel,” Brim said, but again he spoke to a darkened display. He shook a mock fist of anger, then opened a connection to Fragonard in the turret. “You're the disruptor expert, Fragonard,” he said. “What do you say? Can these field pieces really tear up a couple of the League’s RT-9I battle crawlers?”
“Easily, Fragonard replied with a frown, “if we can just aim 'em well enough. I've told the men to have a go at it soon as they've got their equipment ready. Trouble is, we haven't had time to adjust' em well enough yet to fire accurately while they're moving. Maybe we can get close, but if we kill more Leaguers than locals, it’ll be a case of good luck, if you catch my drift, sir.”
“Tell everyone to do the best he or she can,” Brim yelled over the noise of another near miss. This one sent a deluge of green water drizzling into the control cabin between the panes of glass to puddle on the deck and COMM cabinet. He ruefully wished he'd thought to have the BATTLE COMMs rig a permanent KA'PPA to his field piece. Perhaps he might now be calling in some close support from space — one couldn't do that with ordinary COMM gear, of course. He shrugged and dropped the subject from his mind. “Are they gaining on us?” he queried Fronze in the last disruptor.
“Aye, sir,” she answered, face serious. “We're gettin' ready to try an' put the disruptor on 'em, Lieutenant, but Starman Cogsworthy up in the turret don't think
we've much chance of hittin' them, what with no stabilizers an' all.” Her image bounced in the display as the same enemy fire sounded first from the COMM console, then a click later from the windows.
“Thanks, Fronze,” Brim said. “Let me know when you get the stabilizer going.” They were passing along a relatively clear stretch of shore marsh now. His mind raced. If he couldn't get at the pursuing battle crawlers, what could he do? Stop and fight? He laughed at that possibility. They'd all be sitting ducks while the ordnance men recalibrated their disruptors. He shook his head. Perhaps he ought to sacrifice the last few cannon in line: Order Fronze to stop and fight a lonely battle of delay. He discarded that idea, too — not enough delay.
Presently, a deeper, more substantial thunder sounded from the rear, with a flash visible at mid-afternoon. A dirty column of smoke and debris shot skyward far to the rear. “Lieutenant!” Fronze yelled excitedly from a display globe. “Cogsworthy got the stabilizer goin', sir! That ought to give 'em somethin' t' think about!” Her image jumped violently as sounds of heavy return fire filled Brim’s control cab.
More of the huge, drumming thunder followed the first. These were succeeded in rapid succession by whole series of smaller bursts. “By Corfrew's beard,” someone said excitedly from a display globe, “I don't think they liked that!”
“Can't understand why not,” another voice said after more explosions tore up the marsh. “Look! It wasn't anywhere half near them. Bastards have no sense of humor.”
“How's it going back there, Fronze?” Brim demanded.
“Not so bad, Lieutenant,” the rating said through clenched teeth. She blanched while a whole volley of discharges thundered from the disruptor above her, then turned to peer out the rear of her vehicle, shaking her head. “'Cept,” she added, “I think they're shootin' closer t' us, an' Cogsworthy's gettin' farther away from them.” She grinned. “This single-file-on-the-wire stuff cuts our shootin' down to my one projector.” Her image danced violently in the globe as Cogsworthy let go with another shot, then continued to shake from a peppering of near misses landed in return. “Course,” she added cheerfully, “it also saves our skins from more'n one of theirs, too.”
Suddenly, the display globe seethed with a churning glow and disappeared. A violent flash from aft lit the afternoon sky, followed by a grating, trembling roar. Brim swung in his seat in time to see a burning turret arch lazily through the sky, trailing thick clouds of amber smoke until it disappeared with a monstrous splash and cloud of steam far out into the lagoon. “Universe,” someone bawled, “that was Cogsworthy!”
“Poor Fronze!” wailed another voice.
“Shut up, the both of you,” a third voice rasped. “None of those three felt a bloody thing! So just maybe they're the lucky ones. “
“Yeah,” said a fourth. “You'll wish that was you if we're ever captured, you will!”
Brim squeezed his eyes closed for a moment, thinking about a prefect named Valentin, then nodded in silent agreement.
“Someone told me you were worried about bein' bored this trip, Lieutenant,” Barbousse called out over the roar of the machinery, his face an impish parody of surprise.
“Must have been someone else,” Brim said, eyes rolled heavenward. “It surely wasn't this Wilf Brim!” He glanced out the windshield and nearly jumped in surprise. His running battle was rapidly approaching the titanic suspension structure he had viewed from a distance.
He snapped his fingers. That was it! An artificial hill — and a big one.
He activated “broadcast” on the COMM console and began to speak, taking special pains to keep a calm inflection in his voice. “Now hear this, all hands!” he yelled over the rising thunder of the disruptors. “We are about to run the high arch ahead. While we're on this side, you'll each have fine visibility and a clear field of fire below. Make the most of both! And remember that any battle crawlers you don't polish off will have the same visibility and field of fire when you are on the bottom!”
CHAPTER 6
So absorbed was Brim with the unfolding battle that the ascent onto the bridge, when it came, nearly took him by surprise. Fragonard had the big disruptor in action before they climbed fifty irals. The noise was deafening, as was the concussion. Higher and higher they rose, traction system roaring and dense white vapor streaming from the cooling fins. Brim watched the ground behind them erupt in gigantic explosions as the wiry little gunner switched to rapid fire and fairly peppered the right-of-way around the speeding enemy battle crawlers. He counted ten of the lopsided enemy machines and thanked whatever powers had dissuaded him from stopping to fight the battle crawlers in place. His second field piece soon added its fire to the holocaust below, then the third. The cable pitched and swayed from dozens of frenzied discharges, sending the field piece careening wildly from one side to the other as they climbed farther and farther toward the high arch of the bridge. Without warning, a particularly bright blast on the ground was followed first by a cloud of peculiar-looking debris and then by frenzied cheering from the COMM cabinet.
“A hit!” someone yelled.
“I nailed the bastard, I did!”
“Good on you, Ferdie! Give 'em wot for!”
Soon all seven of the captured field pieces were firing rapidly and wildly, as often as their disruptors could recover. Below, the Leaguers maintained a furious barrage in return — although two more of their number were now carbonized junk mounds smoldering at the base of towering smoke columns along the right-of-way. Beneath Brim's straining vehicle, the rampaging cable was bucking violently in two axes, making Barbousse lean desperately on the rudder pedals in a frantic attempt to keep from plunging off into the considerable abyss that now separated them from the surface.
“Sweet bloody Universe!” someone screamed in panic from the COMM console. “I'm losin' it!”
Horrified, Brim looked back along the wire to see one of his field pieces skid up and off the writhing cable, its projector still firing spasmodically. Momentum carried the awkward vehicle perhaps twenty irals higher before it peaked, rolled lazily to port, and plunged like a stone through the suspension wires, disappearing in a great splash that spread rapidly in all directions from the point of impact. Heartbeats later, a single explosion rent the lagoon in a giant glowing bubble that burst with a massive eruption of smoke and greasy flame, quenched almost instantly in a plume of steam and slowly tumbling debris.
Ahead, the apex of the great arch was now visible through the windshield, no more than a few hundred irals distant. Aft and below, the remaining enemy gun layers were finally warming to their jobs — space around Brim's convoy was suddenly alive with explosions and concussion. Three of the armored windows above his head shattered, filling the control cabin with a swarm of whirring glass splinters that buzzed harmlessly along the armored fabric of his battle suit and helmet, but shredded the tough upholstery of his seat. He shook his head. Another near miss tore a huge access hatch from something near the cooling mechanism — which was itself beginning to glow again from the strain of the long, steep climb and the insatiable demands of the disruptor, now firing almost constantly. Renewed clouds of steam billowed in their wake from the cooling fins, and as he looked down along the weaving, swinging cable, he could see his other field pieces were in no better shape at all. It was now or never. He bullied the COMM cabinet back to “broadcast” and yelled over the noise, “Now hear this, all hands! Switch targeting immediately to the buried cableway five hundred irals in front of the bridge. I repeat, in front of the bridge.” The disruptors went silent momentarily as he talked. “Dig up the cable so the battle crawlers can't follow right away,” he enjoined the ordnance men. “But don't touch the bridge. We need that for our own trip home!”
“Right ya are, Lieutenant!” someone called back over the noise.
“We'll be careful, sir,” someone else echoed.
In short order, the six disruptors directed a new frenzy of flame and concussion onto the buried cableway — no more accura
te than before, but at least more-or-less concentrated. The bridge began to sway again, but Barbousse was now mastering the big machine, and he tracked the cable flawlessly as it pitched and yawed like a pendant flying in the breeze.
Suddenly Fragonard's thundering disruptor went silent. Brim looked up from his COMM cabinet. They were over the top! The big field piece could no longer bear on the approach ramp to the bridge. Soon the next cannon topped the bridge, then the next. When the sixth left off firing, Brim leaned out of the cabin in the roaring slipstream. Two thousand irals below, wide areas fronting the bridge approaches looked as if they had been plowed by a large asteroid. Gaping holes here and there told of many near misses, but the area through which the cable had to pass was now a gigantic crater that glowed from within and vomited forth a dense smoke pillar as the underlying rock formations themselves burned from the hellfire of Brim's disruptors. While he watched, the first enemy battle crawler pulled to a halt well short of the zone of destruction, firing off a desultory round now and then toward its escaping quarry.
Brim frowned as he drew his head back inside the cab. “They're stopped,” he told Barbousse.
The big rating expressed no surprise at Brim's announcement. “Makes sense, Lieutenant,” he said. “I figure in their eyes we've made ourselves out to be a lot more trouble than we're worth.” He grinned as the field piece roared between a pair of towering and the cable disappeared once more into the ground.