CHAPTER XII

They were coming now--a horde of great silver ships that lanced through the void like streaks of light, hurtling down on Gadar. The slim, sleek _Chonya_ craft were with them, too ... the dull black _Malya_ flyers; and Shane knew that his other calls had gotten through--that the worlds and the asteroids were uniting against slavery and death and chaos.

A siren blasted shrill alarm. Quos Reggar's renegades swarmed onto the ramp, racing for their ships to take up the challenge.

The light of battle shone in Shane's blue eyes. The reckless laugh rose in his throat. With a jerk, he levered the slaver flagship's great hatches shut. His thumb rammed home the contact button for the interlacing belts of proton cannon that girded the craft.

The exploding flame of pronic blasts erupted across the short-range visiscreen's whole viewer--searing the outlaws from the ramp, smashing the slaver ships off their bases, turning the great volcanic pits to a holocaust of flaming ruin.

And Shane the Earthman, _gar_ of the _Chonyas_, high lord of the asteroids, laughed his wild, bold, reckless laugh and jammed the contact button home again ... again ... again....

But now a voice came through the amplifier--Quos Reggar's voice, shaking with rage and hate and fury: "Though it costs me my own ship, I'll blast you, _chitza_! You'll sear as my men have seared--"

Shane flicked the switch. "Blast, then, Reggar! Blast--but you'll blast the Lady Kyrsis with me!"

Beside him, Kyrsis screamed, "No Reggar! Not that--not that! The meteors--"

Shane snapped the switch. "The meteors--?"

The silver woman's poise was gone. She shook her fist, and the glittering metallic hair came tumbling down about her shoulders. "You'll see, Earthman! You'll see! We have weapons such as you've never dreamed of--"

* * * * *

Shane's eyes flicked back to the long-range visiscreen--to the silver fleet that raced towards Gadar. It was closer now ... so close he could see the fore-jets opening for the landing.

Only then, abruptly, the fleet was swerving--swinging wide in wild, irregular maneuver.

And then the meteors came--bright balls of flame in swirling clouds and clusters, with cores of stone and molten iron; flashing across the screen in the path of the Federation fleet ... hurtling through space in a murderous barrage.

And one ship swerved too late, and a great orange-and-purple monster crashed into it with a burst of fire and sparking shards.

"You talk of power, Earthman?" Kyrsis raged shrilly. "You brag of your Federation's broadcast system? Then look at this, and know what power really means! We have tapped a source of energy so great it makes all others puny--a source your science left untouched, though it lies within your solar system! But we have harnessed that force. We have concentrated it into great controlled magnetic fields that we can shift at will, so strong they pull the very meteors from their courses and hurl them to the place that we desire them!"

Shane rocked, and shock was suddenly written on his lean, hard face. Wordless, he stared into the screen.

"And there is more, _Gar_ Shane--much more!" the woman cried. Swiftly, she stepped to the screen and twirled the dials. "There was a plan we drew for such a time as this--a plan to smash barbarian worlds to dust and ashes. We'll hurl the meteor swarms down on their cities, clouds of them so huge they'll cut through any atmospheric layer." She whirled. "Here, see your homeland, Earth! It will be the first to go! Already, the field is concentrating, forming--drawing in the meteor clouds out of the void--"

The viewer on the long-range screen was clearing. And there was Earth, Shane's native planet, a great, green-glowing arc in the lower corner. A lone space ship was rising in the foreground, speeding out into the void. But already, about it, were meteor clusters ... gathering swarms that grew with every passing minute.

"You see, _Gar_ Shane? The people of your Earth are doomed!" the silver woman jeered in paranoiac frenzy. "There is no hope, no way to save them! The other planets, too, will go, till at last there is no one left but we of Gadar. Then we shall migrate out of this dark star, into your worlds, where life is not yet spent and faded. My people's strength will rise anew--"

* * * * *

Bleakly, Shane stared into the screen, through a moment that lasted all eternity.

Then, in one explosive motion, he snatched the space-phones from their rack. His voice crackled out into the void: "_Chonyas_ ... _Chonyas_ ... Shane, your _gar_, is calling--"

And taut-drawn _Chonya_ words came back: "We stand by for your orders--"

"I want a ship," Shane answered tightly, "a single fast _Chonya_ ship, equipped with Abaquist repellers, to try to break through the meteor swarm and come down to Gadar to me on the fleet alarm beam."

"We come, _Gar_ Shane--"

Even with the words, a slim, sleek craft was breaking from the milling fleet, swerving through the sky in a monstrous arc.

Then it was coming round again--striking its course, plunging down on Gadar. Straight into the blazing meteor swarm it sped, and even on the screen Shane could see it tossing--careening, staggering, lurching with shock.

And then it was through the swarm and out again. Its hull was ripped, its hatches battered, but still it plummeted down towards Gadar.

Kyrsis cried: "Now I know you are truly mad, not just a fool, if you think you can fight both my people and Quos Reggar here on Gadar with the crew of a single ship!"

Shane said: "We're leaving now," and levered back the hatches. Again he fired a burst from the proton cannon to clear the way ... saw the shaft's walls vibrate with its violence.

The _Chonya_ ship hurtled down the huge volcanic pipe like a shooting star. Barely in time, it braked and based upon the ramp.

Before she could read his thoughts, Shane snatched up Kyrsis bodily and raced through the smouldering pronic rubble to the _Chonya_ craft.

"Blast!" he shouted, and swung aboard; and almost before the hatches were shut, the ship was in the air again, lancing up into the sky.

The commander said: "Where now, _Gar_ Shane? What are your orders?"

* * * * *

The Earthman laughed harshly. "Send out the word to break the Federation fleet into squadrons, each to stay far from the others, and all to strike at Gadar. We'll see how many meteor swarms our friends down there can muster!"

"And the rest of us--the _Malyas_, _Chonyas_--?"

"You'll follow me," Shane said. He took the jet-globe. "I'll set the course."

Kyrsis' eyes were like great violet flames. "Pay him no heed, _Chonya_!" she cried hoarsely. "Kill him! Lock him away! He is of Earth, and he has gone mad with fear for his homeland! He takes you there to try to battle another, greater meteor swarm! It will be the death of all of you!"

The _Chonya_ glanced curiously at her in her disarray, then looked into the visiscreen, the jet-globe. "A _Chonya_ holds no fear of death, Silver One," he observed, iron-steady. "Besides, our course is set for Jupiter, not Earth."

"Jupiter--!" the woman cried, and now a new note of panic was in her voice. She clutched Shane's arm. "Why Jupiter, Earthman? Why?"

"Not Jupiter, Kyrsis, but one of Jupiter's moons," Shane answered thinly. "You see? There it lies in the visiscreen."

"Jupiter V--!" the silver woman whispered. "No, Shane! No--!"

"Yes, Kyrsis!" the Earthman came back coldly. "Jupiter V, the place where Reggar held me prisoner. And the satellite closest to the planet, a satellite heaped twelve levels deep with power converters."

"No, no--"

Relentlessly, Shane hammered on: "Who was it wanted all that power? Who built that great Paulsini unit? Not any slaver, surely! No, that took skill and science and years of work. And when it was done, your people had more power than the world had ever known--power drawn from the endless seas of energy of Jupiter's great Red Spot, the heat of oceans of flaming hydrogen, the force that lies congealed in gases held under such pressures that they turn to solids, all turned somehow to your use by those new converters that I saw there."

The silver woman looked at him. A little of the wildness left her eyes, replaced by something that might have been cunning. Her voice came down to its former liquid murmur. "And what will you do when you get to this moon, Earthman? Will it bring back the cities of your native planet?"

"Say what you mean," Shane came back tightly.

"Perhaps Earth could be spared--for your aid against the other worlds of the Federation."

Shane's eyes blazed. "You _do_ think me a fool, _Shi_ Kyrsis! After all that has gone, can you believe I would trust you?"

"It is a chance you must take, if you would save Earth's cities."

* * * * *

Strain showed in Shane's voice, his face. But his jaw stayed hard, his blue eyes steady. "If Earth must go, then go it will, _Shi_ Kyrsis. For all I know, the meteors may this moment be hurtling down. But even if they are, and though it costs me my life and my homeland, I'll still take the chance in order to break your life-sucking people's power."

"But you cannot destroy that power--"

The _Chonya_ commander broke in: "More meteors, _Gar_! They gather between us and the satellite!"

And Kyrsis jeered. "You see, Earthman? You have lost already!"

Shane said to the _Chonya_: "We're going through."

"Through the swarm?" The commander's face lost a little of its color, but his voice stayed firm. He picked up his space-phones. "I shall give the order."

"We're going through," Shane repeated grimly, "and some of us--those who have repellers--may get there. There will not be many, but only a handful of workers can be on that moon, with Reggar's crew withdrawn, so even a few ships will be enough."

"Yes, _Gar_," the _Chonya_ nodded coolly. He spoke into the space-phones, gave the order.

The ship lanced into the swarm.

There was a nightmare quality to those endless moments. Space was suddenly ablaze about them with a thousand screaming lights that slashed at them from all directions. Off to the right, a great ball of fire appeared from nowhere and blotted out a ship. A streak of flame speared through another, and it exploded in mid-flight.

And still they drove on through the tempest, tossed and jostled, beaten, butchered.

An alarm bell clanged fiercely.

"A rip in the hull, upper port," the _Chonya_ reported grimly.

Jupiter V was very large in the screens now. It loomed like a monstrous metal ball, glistening with the hood of structure that encased it.

"The swarm is following us now," the commander said. "It moves with us, traveling even faster than are we." His lips twisted wryly. "Their control is getting better all the time."

Shane stared into the visiscreen. It was as if the satellite were hurtling up to meet them. The exploding speed of it made the screen seem almost to whirl.

And still the meteors swarmed and blazed around them.

"Thirty seconds more," the _Chonya_ said. "We must brake by then, or crash instead of ramp."

* * * * *

Jupiter V now extended past the edges of the screen. They could see but a segment of it--a segment that raced ever upward, ever towards them, dividing into a thousand and finer details every second.

"Twenty seconds," the _Chonya_ reported.

The meteor swarm seemed to close in about them--tighter, tighter.

"Fifteen seconds."

The meteors' light was stunning, blinding.

Shane's teeth were clenched, his lips parted, his eyes glued tight to the viewer of the visiscreen. The muscles stood out along his neck. The tension about him was a living thing.

"Ten seconds."

A sort of paralysis seemed to grip the Earthman. He stood frozen, still staring like one in a trance.

The ribs in the satellite's casing stood out, now--the ports, the vents.

The meteors seemed to have grown to blazing suns.

"Five seconds."

Shane's paralysis broke. He snatched the phones, and of a sudden his eyes were blazing like the nightmare scene beyond their hull. "Veer!" he shouted. "Don't land! Veer--!"

The _Chonya_ commander's hand struck the jet-globe with a crack like a whip. It spun till it sang, racing round and round.

The ship swung out in a wild gyration. Reeling, slashing crazily across the moon's perimeter, it hurtled off through space.

Behind them, the other ships, too, were peeling clear.

But not the meteor swarm. Down it plunged, down, in the course the ships had followed, straight at the hundred-mile ball that was Jupiter V.

"They'll crash--!" the _Chonya_ cried, and jubilation was in his voice. "They did not know we were so close! Now it's too late to turn them!"

The explosive flash of the meteors bursting through the satellite's casing came like an exclamation point. Great cracks appeared--monstrous fissures, spewing flame.

And still more meteors hurtled down--the whole, vast, captive swarm. The planetoid's casing glowed red-hot, then white, till the moon was a fiery, radiant sphere.

Then suddenly, it seemed to shiver. A gigantic explosion ripped one side, sent the planetoid spinning over. A huge, wedge-shaped chunk tore loose and blasted off through space; then another ... another.

* * * * *

Without a word, the commander of the _Chonya_ craft picked up the manual on interspatial navigation, riffled through to the page on Jupiter V. Tore it out, crumpled it, dropped it to the floor.

Shane threw him a grim, tight grin and said: "There's still work, back on Gadar."

The _Chonya_ spun the jet-globe; focussed the visicreen on the dark star.

Even as the image drew sharp and clear, a ship shot out of one of the great volcanic pipes that served as the planet's ramping spots.

Shane's face went dark again. "That's Reggar's ship. Where is he going?"

And then, beside him, Kyrsis said, "Oh, no--!"

Shane turned at the sheer, stark panic in her voice.

Her face showed even more.

The Earthman looked back to the visiscreen again; and this time he, too, rocked under the impact of the thing that was happening.

_Gadar was moving from its orbit!_

Faster it went, and faster, slashing a course towards outer space. The ships of the Federation fleet raced madly from its path.

"No--!" _Shi_ Kyrsis cried again. "No, they must not leave me!" Her face was working now, contorted. The silvery tones seemed duller, more like lead.

In an awe-struck voice Shane said: "This is the way they must have come! It was no cosmic accident! They hurled their own planet across the void--"

"No, no!" the silver woman shrieked, and the wild hysteria in her tones was giving way to madness. "They can't, they can't! I must go with them--!" Her twitching face was no longer human.

Then, before anyone could stop her, she turned and ran--out of the door, away from the control room.

But outside the room there was no place to run ... only an echoing, well-like shaft that dropped away a hundred feet through the vitals of the ship, its depths linked only by a steel-runged ladder.

Unseeing, unheeding, the silver woman plunged over the brink and plummeted downward. Her scream rose and fell in the banshee wail of a soul in torment.

It ended with a sound like the bursting of an air-filled paper bag a room or two away.

The _Chonya_ sucked in air. He let it out with a sound that might have been pity.

White-lipped, Shane said: "There was a _Chonya_ child, a little girl...." Abruptly, he turned away and spun the jet-globe.

The ship's commander frowned. "I do not understand, _Gar_ Shane."

The Earthman's eyes stayed on the visiscreen. He said: "My road still lies before me. It leads to Quos Reggar, and my great iron belt, and Talu, the _Malyalara_."