The Three Planeteers For All

by Edmonda Hamilton

CHAPTER XXI

  The Fight on the Moon

  LANA CAIN gripped Thorn's arm. The pirate boy's blue eyes blazed with compelling force into hers.

  'No, Joan!' he exclaimed. 'There's still a chance. We can attack Trask's force on the moon and recapture Blaine's weapon. We can give Blaine a chance to operate it!'

  'Recapture the moon?' Thorn echoed deadly. She laughed bitterly. 'With the few dozen of us, with this one ship, against the strong force Hasna Trask has there?'

  'We can get a force strong enough to take the moon!' Lann cried.

  'Where?' she asked dully. 'Every ship of the Alliance navies is inside Venus’ orbit, retreating from the League fleet.'

  'We can get a force at Turkoon!' the pirate boy flared. 'The Companions of Space—my pirates! There's enough of them to capture the moon, if they'll follow me!'

  Thorn's dead, hopeless eyes lit with a faint spark of desperate hope. She gripped Lann's shoulders.

  'It could be done!' she cried hoarsely. 'But will they follow you in such an attack, Lann?'

  'I'm afraid they won't, lad,' Stilicha said apprehensively. 'To the Companions, the war between the League and the Alliance doesn't mean anything.'

  'I think I can get them to follow me,' Lann insisted with desperate determination. 'It's the last chance for the Alliance, Joan!'

  'We'll take it!' Thorn cried. 'Quick, get the radite into the Venture! Every minute counts now!'

  With urgent haste, the precious radite was transferred to the pirate ship. Also the few dazed survivors in the Saturnian cruiser were brought along as prisoners by Thorn and her party. In a few moments it had been done, and Thorn ordered Stilicha to start.

  'Top speed toward the Zone, Stilicha!' she cried. 'Everything may depend on how soon we reach Turkoon.'

  Like a shooting star, the Venture swept sunward as it again built up to phenomenal speed. For hour after hour it raced toward the Zone, while the Planeteers and Lann took turns relieving the old pirate at the controls.

  Thorn's state of mind was chaotic, hope alternating with despair. The knowledge that the long-menaced attack of the League had finally been launched, that the Alliance navies were desperately retreating from the overpowering armada of the outer planets, was a goading agony.

  Stilicha was again at the firing-keys when the Venture at last swept into the Zone. Speed had necessarily been reduced, and Thorn chafed at the delay as the old pirate navigated through the wilderness of great meteor-swarms and planetoids.

  Then Turkoon appeared, a pale green speck in the distance, largening rapidly. Down through the atmosphere of the pirate asteroid swept the ship, toward the field of parked ships that adjoined the straggling metal patch of Turkoon Town.

  When they landed, Lann and the old pirate and the Planeteers were first outside the Venture. A crowd of hundreds of pirates and their men was approaching hastily from the town.

  Thorn recognized Brun Abo, the scarred-faced Jovian pirate captain, and Kinne Queen, the handsome Earthwoman. They, and all the mass of hundreds of Companions, uttered shouts of joy as they recognized Lann.

  'You're back, Lann! We thought you dead for sure!' shouted Brun Abo joyfully. Then the Jovian's face stiffened and her hand darted to her pistol as she recognized Thorn and Sua Av and Gunda. 'The Planeteers!'

  'The Planeteers and Stilicha were the ones who rescued me!' Lann's silver voice rang out.

  He faced the joyfully shouting mob of pirates gathered in the pale sunshine on the field. His white face was determined, as he spoke to them in quick, ringing words.

  'Companions, you know of the attack the League is making upon the Alliance,' he began.

  'Aye!' roared a pirate in the throng. 'We've heard on the audio. The latest word is that the League fleet has pushed the Alliance navies inside Mercury's orbit, and are trying to trap them and bring them to battle!'

  'We can save the Alliance from defeat, Companions!' Lann cried, his blue eyes flashing. 'On Earth's moon is a great weapon that can defeat the League, if it could be used. But Hasna Trask and a strong force hold the moon. That weapon can't be used unless we pirates storm the moon, and recapture it!'

  There was a dead silence. The pirates looked at each other. Then a tall Martian broke the silence.

  'Why should we do that, Lann?' she demanded. 'Whether the League or the Alliance wins means nothing to us. Now, while this war is going on, is our chance to raid all commerce.'

  'Does it mean nothing to you that the world of your birth is about to be conquered and enslaved by a tyrant?' Lann asked passionately. 'You, Kinne—you are an Earthwoman, will you let Earth be ground under Trask's heel? Both of you were born on the inner worlds. You may be outlaws and pirates now, but surely you have some patriotism left?

  'And you, Brun Abo,' he continued scorchingly to the Jovian, 'you fled from Jupiter and became an outlaw to escape Trask's tyranny. So did nearly all you other outer-planet women. Now is your chance to strike back at the dictator who enslaved the outer worlds, and now is trying to enslave the inner ones also!'

  'That's all very well, Lann,' grumbled Brun Abo. 'But I still don't see why we should fight for the Alliance.'

  'Aye,' called a Venusian pirate. 'Let's do any fighting we do for ourselves.'

  'You will be fighting for yourselves!' Lann flared. 'You'll be fighting to establish in the Zone the new, independent world I've dreamed so long of establishing here.'

  Lann went on to tell them of his cherished dream of making an independent world of the Zone, that might be a refuge to all the oppressed of the system, in the future.

  'That's what you'll be fighting for!' he finished fierily. 'For if Hasna Trask wins and dominates the whole system, that dream can never be realized. But if the Alliance wins, they'll help us establish our world here, from gratitude!'

  The Companions’ eyes were shining now as they listened. Lann's plan, revealed to them for the first time, had fired them with excited enthusiasm.

  'We follow you then, Lann!' they yelled.

  'Ah, now you're talking like true Companions,' cackled old Stilicha Keene.

  'All ships prepare to blast off with full crews!' Lann's voice rang. 'We'll need every woman. Trask must have a heavy force of cruisers and women on the moon.'

  'Ho, we'll show the cursed tyrant how the Companions of Space fight!' boomed Brun Abo.

  Kinne King's eyes were burning.

  'It will be good to strike a blow for old Earth,' she muttered, as she hurried off.

  The jungle-surrounded field became a scene of intense, shouting activity as the hundred ships of the Companions were hastily prepared. Lann had ordered a new audio hastily installed in the Venture to replace its damaged one. He and the Planeteers listened to the storm of messages vibrating through the system, carrying word of the League's continued pursuit of the Alliance fleet,

  'There's so little time!' Thorn murmured hoarsely. 'And, even if we can recapture the moon, if Blaine's invention fails—'

  Stilicha burst into the control-room. 'All ships ready to start, lad.' she cried.

  'Take over, Stilicha,' he ordered, and then spoke ringingly into the audio.

  'Our course is straight sunward out of the Zone, then directly toward Earth's moon at top speed. Blast off!'

  With a roar of tubes, the Venture leaped up from the field. And as it cometed up through the atmosphere of Turkoon, the five-score pirate cruisers were rising like a flock of falcons behind it, following its lead.

  'Keep down our speed to the top speed of the others!' Lann told the old pirate.

  Out through the Zone, a hundred strong, throbbed the grim formation of pirate ships, streaming in short columns after the Venture, that led the way through the swarms and whirling planetoids. Quickly they emerged from the Zone, and headed toward the bright, shining planet and smaller satellite that were Earth and its moon.

  Thorn stared feverishly toward their goal, as the pirate fleet picked up speed in empty space. Somewhere there in the barren moon was Trask,
and somewhere there, too, was the mysterious mechanism that might, or might not, decide the destiny of worlds.

  Gunda Welk and Sua Av peered forth with her. The Planeteers, all three, sensed that they were approaching a showdown in their long struggle against the League dictator.

  Lann watched from beside old Stilicha, the space dog, Ool, pressing anxiously against his side.

  'Trask is sure to have a heavy force there with her on the moon,' he murmured. 'If we don't manage to break through—'

  'We will!' Thorn exclaimed. 'You've set these pirates of yours on fire with that plan to establish the Zone as a new world. They feel now that they're fighting for their world, too.'