Battlefield Earth (47 page)

     At that exact moment Zzt in the underground hangars was almost out of his wits.

Ever since that wild recoil had occurred at the end of the semiannual, things had been in chaos.

The rumor had been flying about that it was humans out there. Men! Zzt knew better. Those silly slugs could do nothing. It was undoubtedly Tolneps, landing in here from their system. Zzt, although his thinking was interrupted every few seconds by curses at Terl, had it all worked out. The Tolneps had buggered up the teleportation bands to paralyze counterattack and were in here after the still not inconsiderable mineral content of this planet. There had been trouble with the Tolneps before and the last war with them was inconclusive. They were short, about half the size of a Psychlo, and they could breathe almost anything. And were immune to Psychlo gas barrages, worse luck. Therefore he was rigging a Mark 32 low-flying ground strafer, the most heavily gunned plane in the hundreds of planes in these hangars.

And damn and blast that Terl, was supposed to be in charge of defense! And where were the standby, alert battle planes? Out in the weather. And where were the tanks? Snug and rusting in the underground tank park! And where were the reserves at other minesites? Pulled in here!

Damn Terl! There was no fuel cartridge or ammunition supply inside the compound. Zzt was illogical in blaming Terl for this, since it was against company rules to store them inside a compound. They were nearly a half-mile from here, and two parties of Psychlos that had tried to get to the dump had been slaughtered. And that was another thing that proved it was Tolneps. The Psychlos who had been hit simply exploded into a pale green flash. Only Tolneps could invent weapons like that!

So he had to scavenge in the old planes and ground cars for half-used cartridges and ammunition charges. Oh, there was quite a bit to be found, but it couldn’t be depended on.

He had come to physical blows with the two Chamco brothers, blast them. They were readying up a heavy armored tank. Two tanks that had gotten out that violent afternoon had been blown to cinders. So the Chamcos were rigging one of the old brutes of the Basher class: “Bash Our Way to Glory.” Nothing could penetrate its hide and its guns wrecked things for miles. The Chamcos were salvaging fuel and ammunition cartridges for it, and they had the nerve, the twisted metal nerve, to maintain that the attackers were Hockners from Duraleb, a system Psychlo had completely whipped two hundred years ago.

The battle had been over who got the cartridges, and that pompous midget Ker had come down and given them both half. Another Terl mess!

The cartridges didn’t fit the Mark 32. Zzt had spent valuable time machining a false case around them to get them into the tubes. Damn Terl!

He had told his men to move that damned drone two hours ago. Damn

Terl!

Now here he was. He had found a copilot: one of the executives in the draft that had just arrived, rated combat on a Mark 32, named Nup; a dimwit- but that’s what you got on an out-of-the-way planet like this- who thought it was a typical Bolbod attack, based on a rumor he had heard in the kerbango shops lately in the imperial City that a conquest of the Bolbods was intended.

Zzt had collected a combat breathe-mask, gotten a shoulder bag of extra vials, gotten his sidearms, put spare rations in his pocket, and last but not least put his favorite wrench into the side of his boot, a wrench that sometimes came in handy in any kind of fight or situation.

The Mark 32 motors turned over easily. It purred. In no time at all he would be out there and that would be the very positive end of this attack! Damn Terl!

Zzt let off the skid grips and taxied the Mark 32, “Hit ‘Em Low, Kill ‘Em,” toward the firing door. Mechanics leaped to get out of his way. The place was in a turmoil of Psychlos trying to get planes ready with nothing. And that damned drone was still standing there.

Ordinarily you could fire three planes at once through that door. It was high enough even to add a fourth. But that ancient relic of a gas drone was so wide and so tall it was blocking the whole door. Just what he’d told Terl. Damn Terl! There was noway he could get the Mark 32 past it.

Zzt leaned out the door and screamed for the shift foreman. He came rushing up. Zzt almost bit him. “Move that damned drone! Two hours ago l-’

“It won’t dolly,” panted the foreman. He pointed. Four dolly trucks had been trying to push it away. “It won’t move!”

Zzt gave his equipment bag a hoist onto his shoulder and sprang down. “You imbecile crunch! The only inside control that thing has is its mag-grapnels. Why haven’t you let it off! Those big skis are magnetically locked to this platform! Why don’t you learn-’

“It’s a very old drone,” chattered the foreman, his wits starting to crumble under Zzt’s glare.

Zzt rushed to the door of the drone. It was a huge door, big enough to load a dozen gas canisters at a time.

Somebody had put a rolling ladder there and Zzt ran up it, his equipment clattering, and pried at the door. It was locked! An armored door itself the size of a plane.

“Where’s the key?” screamed Zzt.

“Terl had it!” the foreman shouted up at him. “We’ve looked everywhere for Terl. We can’t find him!”

Damn Terl! “Have you searched his rooms?” Zzt yelled down from the rolling ladder.

“Yes. Yes. Yes!” cried the foreman.

“We-”

At that moment a higher-pitched voice bit into the row of the hangar. “Yoohoo!” It was Chirk. Zzt stared in daggers of hostility. The cheap twit!

But she was holding a single huge key. “I found this in his desk,” she caroled.

“Where are the other keys to this thing?” shouted Zzt. “The preset box keys.”

“That’s the only one there was in the desk,” lilted Chirk.

It gave Zzt an instant’s pause. He didn’t want this damned old relic firing itself off in the hangar with no way to get out. But he had to move it. This was the door key they were passing up to him.

He glared at the key. Three toggles. Pitted. The shaft almost in two. Terl could at least have made a new key! But oh no, it was paws off.

He shoved the key, all twenty pounds of it, at the lock hole. He twisted it with a curse. Damn Terl!

The rusty, magnetic clenchers gave. The key fell apart.

Zzt flung it to the platform below, narrowly missing Chirk. At least the door was open.

He struggled to swing it back. Even the hinges were decayed and stiff. It opened to reveal the enormous interior.

Zzt got a torch. There were no lights in this thing. It was never meant to have a pilot in it. It was just tons and tons and tons of gas canisters, engines, and armor.

He thought belatedly he might have robbed some fuel from it. Too late now.

He lumbered forward to the control compartment. He had better throw them off. But no! They were armor-locked solid. They couldn’t be unset without a key. And this metal wouldn’t surrender to anything. It was armored! Damn Terl!

He darted his light around. There was the magnetic grip release, the only interior control, put there so hangar and firing people could lock and unlock it when moving it about with tractors.

Zzt reached for the release brake. Before he could touch it, it moved!

He froze, looking at it in horror. Yes, there was a click in the preset box. He dove for the door.

The forward jerk of the motors threw him off his feet. He scrambled for the exit.

Too late!

The hangar door was fleeing by. It was already yards down to the ground. He didn’t dare jump.

The drone took off, its rusty side door flapping in the wind.

Zzt led out a shuddering groan. Damn

Terl!

Well, at least they could get the battle planes out and end the Tolnep attack.

And all this on half-pay and no bonuses.

Probably that was Terl’s doing, too.

     Jonnie, twenty miles away, saw the drone launch. It was a huge thing. The gas drone? He went ice cold.

The flash of an explosion bloomed on the side of it. He knew it would be a bazooka firing. There was a team there to prevent the launching of planes. A second flash against the hull as the boom of the first one drifted faintly to them. Neither had the slightest effect upon the drone. It rose in stately massiveness to two thousand feet as it turned. Still climbing, it headed northwest.

It went by them to the east, looming in the sky, so big it looked close even though two miles away. It was ragged and patched and dented, evidences of former combat on its discolored hide. A tense Jonnie clocked it at about three hundred miles an hour. A battle plane had fired just behind it. Bazooka missiles hit the plane, exploded in two flares of light. It continued sedately on its way, following the drone. As it passed over them he saw it was a different type of battle plane. The Psychlo numbers “32” were on its side and then the smoke logos of the Psychlos. An escort?

The heavy roars beat at the earth.

When they had gone, Terl said, “Why not admit it, animal? You’re licked.

When the Psychlos counterattack from home planet, you’ll already be gone. So why not toss that gun over here and we can make a deal?”

Jonnie ignored him. He was carefully tracking the compass course of the drone relating it to the afternoon sun. He watched it as long as he could as it droned away to the northeast. It was not turning further. Be calm, he told himself. Don’t panic.

“Where’s it going first?” he said to Terl. A battle plane could do two thousand miles an hour. You can catch it. Be calm.

“Throw the gun over and I’ll tell you all about it,” said Terl.

Terl’s motions alarmed Pattie. “Don’t believe anything he says,” she pleaded. “He promised us food and didn’t bring it. He even made out to us two or three times that you were dead!”

“You’ll tell me about it,” said Jonnie, “or I’ll start shooting off your feet.” He aimed his gun.

“Do it!” said Pattie. “He’s a nasty old brute! A devil!”

Jonnie was glancing in the direction Chrissie had gone. She was taking an awful long time coming back. He couldn’t leave the girls out here alone and certainly not with Terl alive. Be calm, he told himself. You can catch up with it.

“All right,” said Terl as though resigned. “I’ll give you the places it’s going.”

“In proper order,” said Jonnie, raising the gun suggestively.

“You’d get a kick out of shooting me up, wouldn’t you?” said Terl.

“I don’t get any enjoyment out of hurting things the way-’

“That’s because you’re a rat brain,” laughed Terl.

All this Psychlo talk between Jonnie and Terl was making Pattie very nervous. “Don’t listen to him, Jonnie, just shoot him,” she demanded, grabbing Jonnie’s gun arm.

“All right,” said Terl. “It’s first target is the bottom of Africa. The next is China. The next is Russia. Then it is preset to fly to Italy and then right here.”

Good, thought Jonnie. He didn’t mention Scotland. It ’s heading over the Arctic on that course. Scotland. That’s its first target. And it would be because the Psychlos couldn’t get up there, or thought they couldn’t. Thank you, Terl.

“Good,” he said aloud. “For information received, you live a while longer.” It would take it seventeen hours to get to Scotland. Look calm. You can catch it.

Chrissie was coming down. They had been hidden by a dip in the plains. The horse was at a walk. And he saw why as she came near.

It was Thor. She was holding him upright in front of her on the horse.

She had removed her buckskin jacket and used it for bandages. Thor’s antiradiation suit was stained with blood around the left shoulder. She had torn it away there and used buckskin and grass to staunch the blood flow. Thor’s left arm was broken, bound in rough sticks for splints. It was he who had been shot out of the sky when he was using the jet pack.

With Chrissie’s help Thor slid off the horse. He was gray from blood loss and stood unsteadily. He looked at Jonnie ruefully. “I’m sorry, Jonnie.”

“It was my fault, not yours,” said Jonnie. “Ease him down on that rock, Chrissie.”

Thor looked at Terl. He had seen the monster close up only a couple of times. Thor was wearing a .457 caliber Smith and Wesson revolver from the old base arsenal loaded with radiation bullets. He suddenly recognized Terl and grabbed for his gun to shoot him.

“No, no,” said Jonnie. “Keep the gun drawn and train it on him and shoot him the moment he looks like he’s going to move, particularly his hands. Can you sit there okay?”

Thor was about fifty feet from Terl. He eased down further and got the gun trained on Terl.

“Now, Terl,” said Jonnie, “that gun he is holding can put a hole in you a horse could dive through. It has special explosive bullets, worse than your own blast gun. Got it?” Be calm in front of these people. You can catch up with it.

He turned to Pattie. He gave her the huge blast pistol to hold. He showed her where the trigger was and she determinedly walked back of a rock so she could support the gun with it.

“I point it like this?”

“And keep it on him.” You have time, he told himself. Do a good job here.

“Why not kill him?” said Thor. “He leaks information,” said Jonnie.

Terl couldn’t understand what they were saying but he got their drift.

Jonnie took out a knife and, keeping out of the line of possible fire, made Terl swivel around. He inserted the knife at Terl’s collar and cut the cloth down the back. He went around front, watching Terl’s eyes for a telltale clench signaling action and pulled the coat sleeves off. He ripped the cloth down the side of each of Terl’s legs. He darted a shallow stab at Terl when he sought to spring. Terl subsided. Jonnie got Terl’s boots and pants off. He took his watch. He took his cap. The only thing Terl had left was his breathe-mask and Jonnie even took the emergency vials off that. Terl glared.

There he sat, his fur matted with sweat, his claws twitching to rake Jonnie.

Jonnie took the belt and made Terl put his paws behind him and cinched the belt as tight as he could around the wrists. Then he took Old Pork’s bridle and tied the wrists and belt and then passed the rope under the mask tube. He cinched it up. If Terl tried to wrestle his wrists loose he would choke himself. Do a good job, Jonnie told himself. Don’t panic. In a battle plane you can catch the drone.

He had been working very fast. He now stepped away from Terl and quickly went through the clothes. Sure enough, Terl had two more weapons secreted. A knife and a second assassin gun.

Jonnie fired a round with the assassin gun. It was silent. The bush he aimed at began to burn. He gave the light gun to Pattie and took the belt gun back.

“Let me shoot him now,” said Pattie.

Thor said to Terl, in Psychlo, “The little girl over there is begging to shoot you.”

“I’ll be quiet here,” said Terl.

“Don’t go near him. Light a fire from that wreck over here to the side, Chrissie, so that Thor stays warm and you can see this area.” He turned to Thor. “Who was with you?”

“Glencannon,” said Thor. “He’s over there in the hills somewhere. I think he tried to get closer to the base. I tried to reach him on this mine radio twice. He’s got one but he doesn’t answer. They’ve only a five-mile range.” He looked curious. “Where are you going?”

At that moment there was an explosion flash at the compound. A battle plane had come out of the hangar and apparently been hit with a bazooka. It soared in a flame ball and crashed at the sound of the bazooka and then the plane explosion reached them. A second battle plane came out and met the same fate.

“See?” said Jonnie. “I’ll send back a mine car for you.” Be calm. At two thousand miles an hour you can catch that drone.

The girls looked numbly at Jonnie.

But what could he do? He had meant to send them to the Academy base, but Thor was in no shape to travel at all. Why not kill Terl? No, that would solve nothing. Sound calm to these people. The speed of the drone was three hundred two miles an hour, he remembered from the messages he had taken from the hand of a president a thousand years dead. A battle plane could go hypersonic at two thousand miles an hour. Even if it were halfway to Scotland, he could catch it hours before it arrived.

He swung up on Dancer. The base was about twenty miles away. Make it in an hour or so of hard riding.

“We can still make a deal, animal,” said Terl. “If you sent uranium to Psychlo, you’re really messed up. It ’s been tried before. They have a force field around their receipt platform and if any uranium flashes on Psychlo, that force field triggers solid to enclose their whole platform. The flashback occurs at the sending point just like you saw today. Psychlo will be attacking this place, animal. You’ll need me to mediate.”

Jonnie looked at him. He raised his hand in farewell to the girls and Thor and thumped a heel into Dancer, and she streaked off through the declining sunlight.

Ahead of him pulsed and flickered the battle at the compound. He had wasted time. He could not have done anything else. Be calm, he told himself. Don’t panic. A battle plane could catch that drone.

As he raced across the plain, he put out of his mind a thought that kept crowding in. Not all the armed forces of the United States in its days of power had been able to do anything at all to that gas drone. Not with planes, missiles, atomic bombs, or even suicide crashes.

You have time. You can catch up with it. Don’t panic.

-

Part XIII –