CHAPTER III
We "Sink" the "Ground Ships"
Boss Handan, of the Winslows, a giant of a man, a two-fisted fighter anda leader of great sagacity, had been selected by the council as our Boss_pro tem_, and having given the scatter signal to the council, heretired to our general headquarters, which we had established on SecondMountain a few miles in the rear of the fighting front in a deep ravine.
There, in quarters cut far below the surface, he would observe everydetail of the battle on the wonderful system of viewplates our ultronoengineers had constructed through a series of relays from ultroscopeobservation posts and individual "_cameramen_."
Two hours before dawn our long distance _scopemen_ reported a squadronof "ground ships" leaving the enemy's disintegrator wall, and headingrapidly somewhat to the south of us, toward the site of the ancient cityof Newark. The ultroscopes could detect no canopy operation. This initself was not significant, for they were penetrating hills in theirlines of vision, most of them, which of course blurred their pictures toa slight extent. But by now we had a well-equipped electronoscopedivision, with instruments nearly equal to those of the Hans themselves;and these could detect no evidence of _dis_ rays in operation.
Handan appreciated our opportunity instantly, for no sooner had theimport of the message on the Bosses' channel become clear than we heardhis personal command snapped out over the long-gunners' general channel.
Nine hundred and seventy long-gunners on the south and west sides of thecity, concealed in the dark fastnesses of the forests and hillsides,leaped to their guns, switched on their dial lights, and flipped thelittle lever combinations on their pieces that automatically registeredthem on the predetermined position of map section HM-243-839, settingtheir magazines for twenty shots, and pressing their fire buttons.
For what seemed an interminable instant nothing happened.
Then several miles to the southeast, an entire section of the countryliterally blew up, in a fiery eruption that shot a mile into the air.The concussion, when it reached me, was terrific. The light wasblinding.
And our _scopemen_ reported the instant annihilation of the squadron.
* * * * *
What happened, of course, was this; the Hans knew nothing of our abilityto see at night through our ultroscopes. Regarding itself as invisiblein the darkness, and believing our instruments would pick up itslocation when its _dis_ rays went into operation, the squadron made thefatal error of not turning on its canopies.
To say that consternation overwhelmed the Han high command would beputting it mildly. Despite their use of code and other protectiveexpedients, we picked up enough of their messages to know that theincident badly demoralized them.
Their next attempt was made in daylight. I was aloft in my swooper atthe time, hanging motionless about a mile up. Below, the groundshipslooked like a number of oval lozenges gliding across a map, eachsurrounded by a circular halo of luminescence that was its _dis_ raycanopy.
They had nosed up over the spiny ridge of what once had been JerseyCity, and were moving across the meadowlands. There were twenty of them.
Coming to the darker green that marked the forest on the "map" below me,they adopted a wedge formation, and playing their pencil rays ahead ofthem, they began to beam a path for themselves through the forest. In myears sounded the ultrophone instructions of my executives to thelong-gunners in the forest, and one by one I heard the girls reporttheir rapid retirement with their guns and other inertron-lightenedequipment. I located several of them with my scopes, with which I could,of course, focus through the leafy screen above them, and noted withsatisfaction the unhurried speed of their movements.
On ploughed the Han wedge, while my girls separated before it andretired to the sides. With a rapidity much greater than that of theships themselves, the beams penetrated deeper and deeper into theforest, playing continuously in the same direction, literally meltingtheir way through, as a stream of hot water might melt its way through asnow bank.
Then a curious thing happened. One of the ships near one wing of thewedge must have passed over unusually soft ground, or perhaps someirregularity in the control of its canopy generator caused it to digdeeper into the earth ahead of it, for it gave a sudden downward lurch,and on coming up out of it, swerved a bit to one side, its offense beamslicing full into the ship echeloned to the left ahead of it. That ship,all but a few plates on one side, instantly vanished from sight. But thesquadron could not stop. As soon as a ship stood still, its canopy rayplaying continuously in one spot, the ground around it was annihilatedto a continuously increasing depth. A couple of them tried it, butwithin a space of seconds, they had dug such deep holes aroundthemselves that they had difficulty in climbing out. Their commanders,however, had the foresight to switch off their offense rays, and sodamaged no more of their comrades.
* * * * *
I switched in with my ultrophone on Boss Handan's channel, intending toreport my observation, but found that one of our swooper scouts, who,like myself, was hanging above the Hans, was ahead of me. Moreover, hewas reporting a suddenly developed idea that resulted in the untimelyend of the Hans' groundship threat.
"Those ships can't climb out of deep holes, Boss," he was sayingexcitedly. "Lay a big barrage against them--no, not on them--in front ofthem--always in front of them. Pull it back as they come on. But churnh--l out of the ground in front of them! Get the rocketmen to make apenetrative time rocket. Shoot it into the ground in front of them, deepenough to be below their canopy ray, see, and detonate under them asthey go over it!"
I heard Handan's roar of exultation as I switched off again to order abarrage from my Wyoming girls. Then I threw my rocket motor to fullspeed and shot off a mile to one side, and higher, for I knew that soonthere would be a boiling eruption below.
No smoke interfered with my view of it, for our atomic explosive wassmokeless in its action. A line of blinding, flashing fire appeared infront of the groundship wedge. The ships ploughed with calmdetermination toward it, but it withdrew before them, not steadily, butjerkily intermittent, so that the ground became a series of gigantichumps, ridges and shell holes. Into these the Han ships wallowed,plunging ponderously yet not daring to stop while their protectivecanopy rays played, not daring to shut off these active rays.
One overturned. Our observers reported it. The result was a hail ofrocket shells directly on the squadron. These could not penetrate thecanopies of the other ships, but the one which had turned turtle wasblown to fragments.
The squadron attempted to change its course and dodge the barrier infront of it. But a new barrier of blazing detonations and churned earthappeared on its flanks. In a matter of minutes it was ringed around,thanks to the skill of our fire control.
One by one the wallowing ships plunged into holes from which they couldnot extricate themselves. One by one their canopy rays were shut off, orthe ships somersaulted off the knolls on which they perched, as theircanopies melted the ground away from around them. So one by one theywere destroyed.
Thus the second ground sortie of the Hans was annihilated.