Part 13 (1/2)
The dark cone bulked higher and higher in the screen It must be sevenblew out, ten or fifteen thousand years ago, itto see, preferably froe that it was hard to realize that the jumbled foothills around it were themselves respectably lofty mountains
When they ithin five htly near the summit An instant later, the missile up; counter-, everybody!” Karski yelled, bracing hi his arave a twisting jerk on the steering handle; the _Goblin_ went corkscrewing upward In the rearview screen, Conn saw a pink fireball blossom far below The sound and the shock-wave never reached theon_ and _Va away in opposite directions The radio was loud with voices, and a few of the words were al from the command post on top of the mesa on the mainland
”Be quiet, all of you!” Kleet back froh so they won't dare use theres, where they can't detect you Then we can start figuring what the Gehenna to do next”
That et it settled who's in coht He looked into the rear and sideview screens, and taking cover immediately made even erously close to the _Dragon_ Guns were firing fro close to them He saw a shell land on and another beside one of the eneun positions--115-mm's fro to the stanchion, and the _Goblin_ shot straight up, and he was expecting to see the sky blacken and the stars coain Thetower of smoke and dust that swelled into ato knoho'd launched that
”We did, sir; _Dragon_,” Stefan Jorisson was replying ”We had to get rid of it We took a hit Gun turret's smashed, Milt Hennant's dead, and Abe Saet this crate down in one piece, it'll do for a miracle till a real one happens”
”Well, be careful how you shoot those things off,” his father implored, from the _Lester Dawes_ ”Get one inside the crater and on't have any spaceport”
The _Lester Dawes_ vanished behind a on_, still airborne but in obvious difficulties, was li the withdrawal, firing rapidly but with doubtful effect with her single 90- out counter-missiles There was another fireball between her and the on_ had followed the _Lester Dawes_ to safety, she turned tail and bolted, the _Goblin_ following
As they approached thethe shape of a recon-car and about half the size passed the in the opposite direction
As they dropped into the chasm on the other side, another nuclear went off at the volcano
When Conn and Fred left the _Goblin_ and boarded the shi+p, they found Rodney Maxwell, Captain Poole, and a couple of others on the bridge
Charley Gatworth, the skipper of the _Vaed in a screen, so was Klem Zareff One of the other screens, fro on her side, her turret crushed and her gun, with the one, bent upward A couple of lorries froside; as Conn watched, a blanket-wrapped body, and then another, were lowered frounboat
”Fred, how are you and Charley fixed for counter- ”Get loaded up with theo up on top of this ridge above, and take cover where you can watch the mountain Transmit what you see back to the shi+p Fred, you take a position about a quarter way around fro over, but don't start anything yourselves I'ather up here; I'll be alongin after me In the meantime, Rodney, you're in command”
Well, that settled that There was one other point, though
”Colonel,” Conn said, ”I assume that this spaceport is occupied by one of these new prospecting coht to take it away fro,” Karski said ”They killed Milt, and it's ten to one Abe won't live either We owe the for that”
”We do, and we'll pay off Conn, you assuh to get the detection syste and put the defense batteries on ready They didn't do that since this lected to file clai side of the law They're outlaws, Conn
All the raids along the east coast; everybody's blas I'll ad at the spaceport is doing most of it”
That was reasonable Barathrum was closer to the scene of the worst outlaw depredations than the Badlands, not ht of Barathruht of Barathruainst it was that he wanted so badly to believe it
They brought the body of Milt Hennant aboard, and Abe Saes and ion_'s six-man crew had been injured Jorrisson, the skipper, had one trouser leg slit to the belt and his right thigh splinted and bandaged; he took over the _Lester Dawes_'in one place Fred Karski and Charley Gatworth went aboard their craft and lifted out
For a long tiot out the plans of the volcano spaceport and the photo area The principal entrance, the front door of the spaceport, was the crater of the extinct volcano itself It was ringed, outside, with launching-sites and gun positions, and according to the data he had, so as 250-mm How many outlaws there were to et killed trying to answer The shi+p docks and shops were down on the level of the crater floor, in caverns, both natural and excavated, that extended far back into the alleries, one above the other, extending entirely around the inside of the crater near the top; passages froun and missile positions
With a dozen shi+ps the size of the _Lester Dawes_, about five thousand men, and a CO asn't concerned with trivialities like casualties, they could have taken the place in half an hour With what they had, trying to fight their way in at the top was out of the question
There was another way in He had known about it fro desperately to think of a way not to utilize it It was a tunnel twointo some of the bottom workshops and storeroo blowhole or s to the fifty-year-old plans, it was big enough to take a gunboat in, and on paper it looked like a royal highway straight to the heart of the enehold
To Conn, it looked like a wonderful place to commit suicide He'd only had a short introductory course, in one seive hio into that branch of the subject later It was also enough to give him an idea of the sort of booby-traps that tunnel could be filled with He knehat he'd have put into it if he'd been defending that place
Colonel Zareff had sent one last ht of recon-cars After that, he maintained a coot close enough to be detected froan spewing out missiles Poole hastily took the _Lester Dawes_ ten miles down the rift-valley in sixty seconds, while Stefan Jorisson put out a nuclear-warheadabout where the shi+p had been From their respective positions, Fred Karski and Charley Gatworth filled the airspace midway to the volcano with counter-missiles, each loaded with four rockets There were explosions, fireballs in the air and rising cumulus clouds of varicolored smoke and dust Only about half the enemy missiles reached the _Lester Dawes'_ former position