"Sub-ships!" breathed Maynard.
MacMillan beams sought the invisible enemy, and their random hits were all too few. Maynard ordered them silenced, and the Terrans hurled material torpedoes into the sky. Up among the Mephistan sub-ships went the torpedoes, to burst with great, eye-searing gouts of radiant energy.
Thousands of the energy torpedoes went aloft, and they served their purpose. The barriers of the enemy ships collected the energy and heated the sub-ships to utterly unlivable temperatures—for the Mephistans. The ships dropped out of the sky—still enveloped in their barriers—and burst open against the hard surface of Mephisto.
Three days later, the reinforcements arrived. Terrans by the million swarmed the third moonlet of Mephisto, and the hemispherical shelters dotted the surface. Cylindrical runways connected one to the next so that spacesuits were not needed to pass from one to the other. Gigantic, permanent-mount AutoMacMillans were set up in readiness; and they assured protection against practically anything that flew the skies.
With the coming of aid, life took on a less hectic appearance, and smiles appeared once more. The medical corps took over, and the injured men received better care than with the rugged life on the tiny moon. Music filled the hemispheres, and though they could not go outside because of the atmosphere, things smoothed out as time went on. There were the reunions of old friends, and stories of those hectic weeks on Mephisto III were recounted and amplified in the time-honored Terran custom.
Even Guy Maynard.
He looked up from a sheet of figures into a familiar face and came to his feet in a jump. "Joan Forbes! What are you doing here?"
Joan waved the comet-borne caduceus before him and said: "Senior Aide Forbes, if you please. Fully graduated and ready for work."
"But ... when?"