Captain Future 20 - The Solar Invasion (Fall 1946) (16 page)

She was beaten.

HASTILY Otho, with Oog to guide him, hurried back for the other Futuremen. He led them to the central headquarters where the Overlord had reigned, Ul Quorn stumbling along among them in close-drawn bonds. Three officers of the Pale People crossed their path en route, and all three died under the sure protonfire of the Futuremen.

Captain Future himself had been busy in Otho’s absence. He greeted the arrival of his friends by showing them a full half dozen captives at one side of the chamber, clamped to the neck in yellow metal like so many snowbound sheep.

“They were the Overlord’s chief staff officers, and they came one after another to ask for orders, because naturally they weren’t receiving any,” explained Curt. “They were timid about coming, not having been told to come; so they were easy to capture. I got the drop on one, tripped up another, knocked another down with my fist and so on. I’ve learned the trick of the Overlord’s pushbuttons, to materialize solid matter around them.”

“N’Rala,” said Otho. “Where is she?”

Captain Future pointed. The Martian girl crouched behind the throne, where had been laid the body of the dead Overlord. N’Rala’s face was calm again, still lovely in its agony of woe. She looked down upon what had been her hope to queen it over two universes. Ul Quorn snorted and cursed by certain disreputable Martian gods.

“Keep her and Ul Quorn apart,” bade Captain Future. “They might still turn out to be the worst possible chemical compound if they got together against us. What news of the battle outside?”

“We can hear it,” said Simon Wright. “It sounds hot, bitter and undecided.”

The Futuremen eyed each other calculatingly.

“I know what’s in your minds,” said their chief. “Why don’t we attack the enemy from the rear, eh? Well, it shall be done. Arm yourselves from the weapons I took from these officers.”

They did so. Then, at Captain Future’s directions, they marshaled Ul Quorn and N’Rala to opposite quarters of the chamber, and after some experimentation with the push-buttons, Captain Future solidified metal around these two fresh prisoners, shoulder high. Straws were drawn and Joan, much to her disappointment, was selected to guard the place. The other humans emerged into the corridors, and Joan, with the atom-lock, solidified the entry shut behind them.

It was easy to reach the battle. Simon Wright, whose radio ears were best, picked up its sounds and floated ahead.

Things were going bad for Dimension X. The Overlord’s flying world had been designed to do battle as a great moving artillery placement.

Like all artillery placements, however, intricate and powerful, it was at a disadvantage when the enemy got too close. The garrison at the weapon-ports was brave enough, but the officers and men were none too sure of the proton guns and rays that Ul Quorn had designed. Too, their central command was gone, killed or shut up in the central chamber.

The breach made by the
Comet
let in more raiders, and more. Ezra Gurney’s seasoned police slid along the corridors to one weapon station after another, destroying, killing, capturing. Thai Thar took a chance on broadcasting an appeal over a captured microphone for those who did not trust the Overlord, to change sides; and some did so, enough to disrupt the defenses even further.

By the time the Futuremen came to the battle, it had been localized, several corridors inward from the surface. A junior staff officer of the Overlord, whose name survives on captured records as Zarn Zel, was desperate but game and intelligent.

He managed to gather a great part of the surviving loyal men into a single fighting force. They held a large chamber designed for conferences and audiences, well armored against possible attacks because the Overlord had so often been present there. Warning devices showed that the attack approached along three corridors, and these the defenders quickly but efficiently mined.

The foremost scouts of Gurney and Thai Thar were blasted into nothing, and the blasts wrecked the corridors and partially blocked the immediate approach of the stronger units who followed. It was the first real check that the Pale People had effected, and Zarn Zel, their commander, permitted himself to grin.

“We may yet win,” he said to his subordinates.

“But the Overlord,” quavered a nervous youth. “We get no word from him. Perhaps he is destroyed.

“Perhaps,” agreed Zarn Zel, without being too appalled by the possibility.

IF HE could crush this danger, and the Overlord did not survive — who could say? Another Overlord would be needed. Zarn Zel wondered if anyone would be more deserving, or more capable, of assuming the title than himself...

From a rear corridor, to which the enemy was not able to penetrate, tramped a figure he recognized. It was a staff officer, wearing the cloak and insignia that showed him to be two or three places senior to Zarn Zel.

“Attack,” growled the newcomer. His voice sounded strange and thick, perhaps because his mouth was puffed and bleeding from a blow or cut.

“Attack?” repeated Zarn Zel. “But we are in an excellent position to meet their assault and throw it back. Let them waste their strength by coming on, while we —”

“Attack,” repeated his superior, staring at him in arrogant challenge.

Zarn Zel’s dreams of blood-won glory and even supremacy began to fade. Plainly this newcomer wanted to take command — yea, and credit and profit. Why should Zarn Zel permit it?

“You’re ill-advised,” said Zarn Zel. “I won’t obey. I’ve estimated the situation, and I’ll meet it as I see fit. If you interfere, I’ll kill you.”

He put his hand to a weapon at his belt. But, before he could draw, the other officer’s hand flashed, swifter than thought, to his own holster. While Zarn Zel’s fingers still fumbled, the other’s proton-gun was out and blazing. Zarn Zel died in the midst of his own protest and amazement.

One or two men stared. The officer who had killed now waved his drawn weapon in the direction of the half-wrecked corridors beyond.

“Attack!” he bellowed commandingly, for the third time.

There was no gainsaying his authority. The junior officers quickly passed the order on. Into each of the corridors pressed a force of Pale People, and they met doom. As Zarn Zel had pointed out before he died, advantage at this point and moment lay all with the defender.

Thai Thar and Gurney, who had paused and quickly reorganized, had the best of it. The front ranks of the Pale People withered before their point-blanked volleys, and those behind might have faltered, except for the insistent cry of their new commander:

“Attack! Attack!”

Obedience was too deeply grained into them, and they pressed forward to their own destruction.

As the reserve units headed into the battle an officer turned to ask a question of the bruised-mouth chieftain:

“Would it not be well if some of us moved through a side corridor, around their flank and behind?”

“Now!” called Captain Future, moving into view from the undefended rear doorway.

His weapon, and Grag’s, and Simon Wright’s, hurled charges into the rear of the enemy. The Pale People spun around to fight. They saw the Futuremen firing into them. They saw, too, the officer who had commanded them to move against Gurney and Thai Thar, now leveling his gun at them. It was too much to understand, and far too much to resist. Some of the men, and the officer who had spoken, threw down then — own weapons.

“Spare those who surrender,” Captain Future directed quickly. “Clear over to the side, you prisoners! Keep your hands up! Now, forward after the others!”

That was really the end of it. Caught as in a sandwich of destroying fire, the survivors were overwhelmed, or surrendered gratefully, there in the passageways and among the wreckage.

Thai Thar and Gurney pushed through to greet the Futuremen with wild cries of triumphant joy.

The staff officer with the bloody mouth was divesting himself of his Dimension X accoutrements and insignia.

“I’m glad that’s over,” he said. With a corner of his cloak he carefully wiped white pigment from his face and neck, and then the smeared crimson color that had simulated blood upon an artificially puffed mouth. His nimble fingers modeled his features quickly back into the familiar face of Otho.

“Your greatest performance of this campaign, Otho,” applauded Simon Wright, settling down beside him. “Even better than that impromptu Ul Quorn at the prison chamber.”

OTHO showed unexpected modesty. “It wasn’t much,” he said. “You should have seen me at the start of things, when I did a Jovian twice my size. I used padding and lifts in my shoes. And I fooled even N’Rala, who knew the fellow personally.”

“You were superb,” Captain Future told him. “And you had only one word of the Dimension X language — all I had time to teach you. Attack!”

“He was pretty monotonous with that word toward the end,” boomed Grag. “I’ll admit he was useful, but so was I. And I don’t need to hide behind makeup.” He stretched out his great arms, and some prisoners ducked fearfully away from him.

There was a final roundup of enemy, and an end to the last resistance. In the midst of this, one of Thai Thar’s lieutenants came forward to where the commanders were gathered.

“Message from the sub-directors of the worlds,” he said. “They’re gathered yonder, on the nearest planet. They know the fight’s over, and that we’ve won. They’re asking what terms we demand.”

Captain Future faced Thai Thar. “That sounds as if they’re ready and willing to quit. Are they in earnest?”

“I think they are,” replied Thai Thar. “Reflect a moment. It’s been like all dictatorships — a supreme power in one individual, a bunch of petted lieutenants close to him, and not even real men in the lower brackets of government doing the routine work. Only machines for carrying out orders. I don’t expect any trouble, now we’ve taken this headquarters and destroyed the cream of the Overlord’s personal retinue.”

“Proceed carefully,” warned Captain Future. “We hold the whip hand, and we’ll keep it until we’re sure. Direct them to give up or dismantle all weapons. Every individual in authority, down to the little bureau-officials, will gather in convenient groups for us to deal with.”

“You’ll take charge?” offered Thai Thar, but Captain Future shook his red head.

“You, and your best people, know what must be done for yourselves. I’ll help, but I’ll not be a ruler — that would make me an invading conqueror and despot.”

“Some of them will be disappointed that we don’t get into a lighted universe,” said Thai Thar, “but better light in the heart than in the sky.”

“Oh, we’ll do something about that, too,” Captain Future assured him. “Get on with forming your new government, and then I’ll explain the last move in the campaign.”

GLOOMY, dark days of Dimension X had passed. Captain Future stood with Thai Thar and Ezra Gurney and the Futuremen at an airlock of the big flying world, outlining once again his theory and his plan.

“This planetary system has two items that I am going to blend,” he explained. “A dim sun and an immense artificial world which can be propelled and guided and, at the proper time, exploded in every atom. I intend to dive her into the sun’s depths and, by an explosion, finish matters.”

“The sun is half-dead,” protested Thai Thar for the hundredth time.

“The sun is half-alive,” said Captain Future. “It has spent its free supplies of heat and light to a great degree. But much remains, waiting only for release. A big atomic explosion might start things.”

“And what happens to you in the meantime?” Ezra Gurney demanded savagely. “You have to steer this big hulk in, and pull that explosion lever.”

“The central chamber, in material and construction, is designed to withstand anything imaginable,” said Captain Future. “Even heat and shock beyond anything man can produce. I hope to come out of it inside that central chamber.”

“Which brings us back to what I’ve said and said and said,” growled the old marshal. “You’re talking the slimmest chance on record.”