CHAPTER IX
Makvern said sharply, "Hold your fire. They're ours."
It was a minute before Wyatt took that in, and by that time someone had lifted the ten-ton weight of No-Name off his back and he was being hurried along the street and out across the fields toward the ships. There was some fighting still going on—the Second Party men had attacked the skeleton crews left behind after the troops disembarked, and a few of them were still holding out.
"We'll have them mopped up soon," a young officer panted, running beside Makvern. He looked as though he had had a rough time. "God, I'm glad you got through, sir! We were trying to find you—"
"How well did we do?" asked Makvern.
"We've got about one third of the fleet. I was hoping—"
"Yes," said Makvern. "So was I. Well, a third is better than a quarter, or a tenth."
"It's hardly a victory, though," said the young officer flatly. He pointed off across the fields in the distance. "Look there, sir. Varsek's starting to pull some of the men back to their ships. He can catch us dead on the ground."
"Send an order to prepare for take-off at once," said Makvern. "Is this the command ship? Good. Get everybody here aboard, see that the wounded are cared for. I'll want—" he reeled off a string of names—"on the bridge immediately—"
Things were already moving fast. Now they raced, under the whiplash of Makvern's orders. Nobody stopped Wyatt, so he followed Makvern to the bridge. Even he could see the danger. If Varsek's heavy-armed units were manned in time to get above them they would be stopped before they started.
Makvern got his ships off the ground.
They roared screaming into the sky, and before they were clear of the atmosphere Varsek's face was mirrored in the communic screen.
It was a face flinty and implacable with anger, not the wild kind that soon burns out but a deeper colder thing that would last until the men he considered to be his enemies were no longer any threat to him or anyone else.
"Did you think you could go home to Uryx now?" he asked, looking at Makvern with his cold eyes. "You may be free of the fleet but you're not free of me. If you go home I'll have you all tried for desertion. I'm still your chief, Makvern, and I have powerful friends."
"Who profit from the loot," said Makvern. "Yes, I know that. It was my thought that we could force a few changes at Uryx too, before it stinks too high of corruption."
Varsek laughed. "With the whole fleet, you might do that. With your handful—no." He leaned closer into the pick-up field so that he seemed to be coming right through the screen. "Listen, Makvern. You've made your move and failed. You can't fight me and you can't go home and you can't even run for long. You haven't enough supply ships. You haven't enough fuel or food. You'll have to start looting yourself or try stealing from me, and sooner or later I'll catch up with you and annihilate you."
"Annihilate," said Makvern slowly. "That's a big, cruel word. I wonder how your men will feel about it. We've been comrades for a long time and our quarrel is with you, not with them. Perhaps a lot of them are as sick of this life as we are and would like to get home to the families they haven't seen in years. We didn't harm any of them when we took these ships, and we'll welcome any of them who want to join us, now or later. We'll be around for a while."
Wyatt knew that Makvern was not talking to Varsek alone, but to all the men who would be listening to the communics all over the fleet. He was a good talker, but it didn't look to Wyatt as though talking was going to do him much good.
"If that is intended as a challenge," Varsek said, "I'll accept it. My plans will not be changed. As soon as we finish here we go on to Earth, and after that to whatever system offers the best pickings. I'm in no hurry, Makvern. I can go on indefinitely. Hang on my flank and hope for deserters as long as you want to. Sooner or later—" He brought his hand down in a slashing gesture. "—I'll destroy you."
His gaze slid past Makvern to Wyatt.
"I warned you twice," he said, "about the fate of brave stubborn men. Whether you stay with Makvern or go back to Earth I'll find you. And I'll give Earth some special attention because of you—we do have weapons that will kill at need." Once more he smiled, and now his gaze included both Wyatt and Makvern. "I know that Earth will be warned. I accept that, too."
"You might lose a lot of men," Wyatt said. "We're not quite as primitive as the Alpha Centaurians."
"You have nuclear weapons," said Varsek, "but no way to get them up to us in space. And people usually hesitate to drop bombs on their own cities, to destroy an invader who is only temporarily there. So your warning does not frighten me."
"We have tactical weapons, too," said Wyatt. "Or didn't you tell your men about those?"
"My men are soldiers," said Varsek, "not babies. Go home, Wyatt. Spread the alarm. And take Brinna with you. That was her plan, wasn't it—warn Earth and thus unseat me." His voice rose and it was as though he was shouting a warning to the whole fleet. "No one can unseat me! This is my Task Force, I command it, and I will command it, until such time as my superiors call me home."
"That will be never," said Makvern wearily, "as long as you keep the loot ships pouring into Uryx to make them rich."
He broke the contact—probably the first time anyone had cut Varsek off first. He turned to Wyatt and his officers.
"Much of what he says is true. We are short of food and fuel. Both of those we can get at Earth, but it will have to be peaceably. I propose that we offer ourselves to help in her defense—that we force a showdown with Varsek by placing our ships between him and Earth. If we're to be destroyed, it might as well be now as later, when we'll be even weaker and less able to fight."
He looked with a terrible grim look at Wyatt and said, "We can carry nuclear weapons into space."
Brief minutes later, Makvern's little fleet, all fast destroyers and a few light supply ships that could outdistance the slower-moving Task Force, went into hyper-drive, headed for Earth.
And now the customary business of landing on a target world was played in reverse. They did not have a propaganda ship, but as soon as they reached the outer limits of Earth's atmosphere Wyatt began to broadcast, blanketing the Western Hemisphere with the ship's powerful transmitter. He sent the same message over and over again, beginning with, We come in peace and going on with a summary of the situation, begging the powers that were not to attack them when they landed. He had Burdick and the Australian speak, and No-Name, and even the Turcoman. He had Makvern speak.
But when an answer did come it was from the government radio in Washington forbidding them to land until the United Nations had been consulted and preliminary talks had been had with Makvern via shortwave, with proper assurances of their intentions. Then Bannister got a message through from the big transmitter on the mesa, starting with "What the hell happened to you, you can't be telling the truth!" Wyatt assured him he was, and Bannister said, "Then for God's sake don't land. Everybody's in a panic. They're evacuating Washington and setting up gun-emplacements on every corner, and the crackpots are having a field day. Wait until they all calm down!"
"We've been trying to make them understand," said Wyatt, "that we can't wait. There's a fleet coming right on our heels and if arrangements aren't made right now it'll be too late for all of us."
"Well," said Bannister, sadly and without hope, "good luck."
They went about their landing.
Makvern's command ship came down in one of Washington's parks. They had decided that Makvern and Wyatt, with one man to operate the thing, would leave the cruiser in one of the stalking-globes. There was not room enough in it for Burdick and the other Earthmen.
Brinna had maintained a brooding silence all the way, but she broke it now by saying bitterly to Wyatt,
"You know your people out there are panicky about this sudden eruption from space—they'll destroy you before you can talk to them."
"I'll have to take the chance," Wyatt said.
"Just as you had to force me to take you to Washington—how long ago?" said Brinna. She added with sudden fierceness, "God defend us from having to do with fools!"
Wyatt grinned. "Are you angry because your schemes are ruined, or because I'm in danger?" Before she could make wrathful reply, he kissed her and pushed her out of his way, and went after Makvern.
They got into the red globe, and stalked out of the cruiser. They needed the globe, not for attack but for their own defense. Above them in the sky a squadron of skimmers wheeled, easily eluding the slower and clumsier jets of Earth, and keeping at such a low altitude that the planes hesitated to fire on them for fear of hitting their own men on the ground.
The red globe stalked ponderously into Washington.
Bannister had told the truth. The city was deserted except for soldiers. Watching the 360 degree screen inside the globe, Wyatt saw men in olive drab fire at them and he heard the vicious battle of bullets against their armor plate. Makvern had assured him it was proof against practically anything short of atomic projectiles, but when the anti-tank guns and the flame-throwers appeared Wyatt began to get nervous and was glad when Makvern decided not to take any chances. He ordered one of the heavy stunners unlimbered and asked for support from the skimmers. Then he turned the radio over to Wyatt.
The screens now showed bursts of green fire all around where the stun rays were striking. The gun crews were being struck down, the soldiers with rifles stunned or driven back. An area of quiet was laid down around the globe, travelling with it as it moved, constantly being pushed ahead by the white beams of the stunners.
Wyatt talked tensely on the radio. "You force us to defend ourselves but you will find that these men are not dead or harmed in any way, only stunned. We beg the President and Congress to give us a hearing—"
No answer. Wyatt mopped sweat from his forehead, and talked on.
"You are faced with an enemy more terrible than any you ever dreamed of, approaching you through interstellar space at many times the speed of light. You see what we can do, but this is only a fraction of their power. Your only hope is to accept our offer of help, plan with us how to stop the Task Force before it ever lands. Or you'll have hundreds of these red globes stalking the countryside, and hundreds of ships against which your planes will be useless as they are right now against the skimmers."
No answer.
Makvern said to Wyatt, "We have to stop somewhere. This is your country—what do you suggest?"
Wyatt looked at the screen. They were in front of the Supreme Court building. Soldiers were firing at them from the approaches, the steps, the portico. Some of them had already been stunned and were lying on the pavement. While he watched a white beam shot out from the globe's projector and burst in green fire among a group on the steps. Wyatt's patience, worn thin by long anxiety, suddenly snapped.
"This place is as good as any," he told Makvern, and then he shouted into the radio, "All right, damn it, I'm an American citizen and I came here in good faith. I haven't committed any crime, and I don't see why I should have to hide and cower in the streets of my own capital, which were paid for out of my taxes. So I'm getting out of this globe, unarmed, and if any damned fool shoots me down he can take it up with his conscience later on."
He got up and snapped at Makvern. "Open the hatch. And pull that stunner in."
"Brinna was right, they're panicky," Makvern said. "They'll kill you. Wait a bit."
Wyatt swore. "We can't wait, it's now or nothing! They'll stay panicky until they actually see that I am an Earthman and not a bug-eyed monster lying to them over the radio. Then we may get somewhere with them."
Makvern hesitated a moment and then pressed a button. The hatch opened and a thin ladder extended itself.
Wyatt went down it.
He went down slowly, and it was a warm day in Washington but he was as cold as mid-December. The sweat of fear was clammy on him and his legs shook. The soldiers in the immediate vicinity were all unconscious or had taken cover, but more would undoubtedly come. He hoped their field command posts would relay his radio message to the men with the guns.
He reached the foot of the ladder and stood there.
There was a great silence. Then a soldier with a rifle edged cautiously around one of the pillars of the portico.
Wyatt watched him, thinking He will raise that gun and fire and that will be the end of it.
The man's voice reached him, thin with distance and surprise. "Hey, it's a man. It's human. It ain't no monster after all—"
From inside the open hatch of the globe Wyatt heard a radio-transmitted voice speaking.
"If you will withdraw your—er—aircraft as a sign of good faith, our representatives will come to—"
Wyatt didn't hear the rest of it too clearly. He was struggling with the reaction of relief. Not only for Earth, but for himself.
After that it was not so difficult. Once the high brass was convinced of the danger, and of Makvern's sincerity, things got done in spite of red tape and provincial stubbornness. The testimony of Burdick and Whitfield, the Apache and the Turcoman, helped immensely.
Makvern's ships were allowed to refuel and take on supplies. They took to space again, but without any nuclear weapons aboard. "Those are my own people," Makvern said. "I can't use that against them."
The air forces of the world were deployed as a second line of defense, coordinated with ground-to-air missile batteries and with squadrons carrying air-to-air missiles. On the ground, the armies readied themselves.
Varsek's fleet came, a great dark arrow of ships into the light of the Sun.
Once more Wyatt was aboard Makvern's command ship, on the bridge. He was acting with others of the regular armed forces of several nations, as liaison officer. He watched the dramatic wedge of ships approach, catching fire on their sun sides as they drew closer until their brazen glitter was painful to the eye. And his heart sank. What Varsek had said was true. Nothing could stand against that fleet.
As though to emphasize that point, Varsek's face appeared in the communic screen.
"So you decided to face me here," he said. "Good. Oh, very good!"
"Perhaps," said Makvern. "Perhaps not. Earth has been warned, Varsek, and now I'm warning you and every man in the fleet. She has powerful armaments, including hydrogen devices, and she is prepared to use them. She can kill a great many of you before she's beaten."
"And who warned Earth?" said Varsek. Both men, Wyatt knew, were speaking to the fleet as much as to each other. "You, Makvern. A traitor's act. Every life we lose here will be your responsibility!"
"Not at all," said Makvern quietly. "You know what the situation is. All you have to do now to avoid any casualties is to withdraw the fleet from Earth without attacking."
"Turn tail and run?" said Varsek. "You should know me better."
Suddenly Makvern's voice blazed fierce, white-hot with old rage. "I know you, Varsek! You'll sacrifice every man in the fleet before you'll admit you've been bested. Remember that, you men, when he's ordering you into battle! Try to figure out what real reason you have for attacking and then see whether you think it's worth dying for! If you don't—"
Varsek's great voice drowned him out. "This is a general order to the Task Force. Battle stations, all personnel. Executive officers of destroyer squadrons Three, Four and Five will proceed with landing operations according to plan."
"You heard your commander," Makvern flared. "Go down and die for him, for his ambition and the fat pockets of his friends, if you want to. If you don't, take your ships out of formation and join us. Then we can all go home. Then—"
"Destroyer Squadrons One and Two," Varsek's voice rolled inexorably on, "will attack the enemy ships at once, proceeding at individual discretion. You will use Type Two armaments—these traitors must be destroyed!"
This time it was Varsek who broke the contact with Makvern, and it was as though by that gesture he declared them all dead.
"Well?" said Wyatt tensely.
"God knows," said Makvern. He began to rap out orders, preparing to fight his ships as well as he could.
Wyatt withdrew into a corner out of the way and found Brinna there. She was regarding the preparations inboard and the movements of the fleet with an expert, eager, frustrated gaze. The realization of the defeat of her ambitious plans changed her, Wyatt thought, very little.
"If I had the command here—" she said, between her teeth.
"I don't think you could swing the men in the fleet, if you had," he said. "Maybe even Makvern hasn't swung them—"
It didn't look as though he had. The Task Force was breaking up in orderly segments, the heavy attack craft wheeling into position behind their destroyer screens, ready for the screaming plunge downward into the sky. And now from their stations at either side of the forward point of the fleet the two destroyer squadrons leaped toward Makvern's ships.
"Type Two armaments," said Wyatt, "are the lethal ones, I take it. No polite stunning of the victim, just good honest annihilation."
Brinna nodded, her hand closing unconsciously on his.
Makvern was hunched like a bulldog in the forepart of the bridge, rapping orders.
"Hang on," said Brinna. "We move."
They did move, roaring straight up in an effort to get above the oncoming destroyers. Wyatt could see other ships going up with them, while still others dropped and circled. They were trying some kind of a boxing-in maneuver, but the destroyer squadrons were old hands at this game too. They counter-moved with lightning speed. Wyatt did not see any projectile pass through space, but suddenly there was a silent blossoming of fire like the birth of a small sun and one of Makvern's ships ceased to exist in the time it took Wyatt to blink.
"I believe," said Brinna in a steady voice, "that's the first time I have ever seen Type Two projectiles in use except on a test range."
There was a kind of a stunned silence on the bridge. Then once more the ship was in tangential motion, and somebody began to shout, "Look at their formations! Some of Varsek's ships are pulling out—"
"Fire!" said Makvern, and the ship shuddered twice. White stunning beams lanced out and struck a dark iron flank with green fire and sent it staggering away—Wyatt assumed that these beams were powerful enough to knock out not only men but delicate electrical equipment as well.
"They are pulling out," said Brinna. "Breaking up. Look!"
He could see that the orderly formations of Varsek's fleet had become suddenly ragged, some of the ships frankly deserting the ranks and others lagging as though they were hesitant.
"It was the projectile," Brinna said. "Seeing one of their own ships full of men they knew destroyed that way—I think it must have shocked them all as it did me."
The face of a man appeared on the screen, white and strained. "Makvern," he said. "You know me—Shannar, commanding the First Squadron. I'm pulling out—this is murder—"
Varsek's face appeared, super-imposed over Shannar's in a ghastly double image.
"Follow your orders! Destroy—"
"The hell with you," said Shannar. "I'm a soldier, not an executioner."
He faded, and a second face appeared through the image of Varsek. "Me, too. After what you've led us into, the Second Squadron is quitting."
Now Varsek's face stood clear in the screen, and outside in space the dark ships wheeled away and joined the number that were gathering behind Makvern's force.
Varsek, his face distorted with a violent fury, cried out, "I order the commander of every ship to proceed with his assigned duties! If he refuses, I authorize every officer in the chain of command to take over until one loyal man is found. I order this! Prepare to land. I'll destroy Makvern myself if none of you have the guts to do it."
And the great bulk of the flagship moved from where it had hung in space and gathered speed, and bore down upon Makvern's command ship like the ultimate hammer of doom.
"He must have packed the flagship with his most trusted officers," Brinna said.
Ignoring every other craft in space, the enormous ship rushed at them.
Makvern spoke into the communic.
"I don't think you quite understand, Varsek. The situation has changed. You are now fairly well isolated. There's been enough killing. Surrender and we'll see that you get a fair trial at Uryx."
"You won't live to go anywhere," Varsek snarled. He began to talk to others who apparently were in the room with him, out of range of the pick-up. "Why the hell doesn't the fleet move? I ordered them. Order them again, and prepare a projectile, Type Two—What are you waiting for?"
"Sir," said a voice, "have you noticed the disposition of the destroyer squadrons?"
"What of them?"
"They're between us and the target. All of them. The commanders request that you surrender. They say there will be no more Type Twos used on men of Uryx."
Varsek spoke into the communic. "Clear the way," he said. "I'll ride over you and smash you. I command this fleet." He pulled his side-arm from its holster and turned around. "As for you—I thought you were loyal to me. I handpicked you, and this is how you repay me! I order you to prepare a projectile—"
A hard matter-of-fact voice said, "You pushed it too far this time, Varsek. You're one man against a fleet. We have been loyal, but you're not the commander any more."
A stunner beam caught Varsek from the back before he could turn around. He fell below the focus of the screen, and the face of another man replaced his.
The man said, "Varsek has surrendered."
There was a long silence in the command ship. Then the men began to cheer and other voices came over the communics, cheering, and only Makvern turned away so that no one could see his face.
Later, after Makvern had made his speech to the fleet, taking over as commander, he said to Wyatt,
"This is where we part. We go home, to put a stop to this looting and pillaging—it's time Uryx grew up and became an empire to be proud of rather than a nest of outlaws. And you can go home too, knowing that Earth will sleep safe tonight."
Brinna stepped forward. "And what about me?"
"I have that planned," said Makvern sternly. "You'll learn about it in good time."
Wyatt smiled, but did not say anything.
He had no chance to say anything later on, when the ship had landed on the desert near the mesa and Makvern and Brinna had shaken hands with him for the last time, standing on the cool sand in the moonlight at the foot of the ship's ladder. Makvern had moved so quickly while Brinna was occupied with her farewells that she did not realize he was already in the lock and the ladder drawn up until it was too late to follow him. He looked down at her and grinned, and said,
"This seemed to be the best solution to your problem, Brinna. It'll be a long time before Earthmen get into space, and by then you'll be too old to make trouble and I'll be too old to care."
"You mean you're leaving me here?" she shrieked.
"In the care of Wyatt, a brave and stubborn man. Goodbye. And clear away now, we're taking off."
Wyatt hauled the temporarily speechless Brinna to a safe distance. She watched the ship take off into the starry sky and Wyatt did not dare say anything then.
He wasn't at all sure he had made a good bargain. But he was determined to make the best of it.
He started out by kissing her.
After a long enough time, she stopped fighting.