An Unequal Duel
:
The Airlords Of Han
But to return to my narrative, and my swooper, from which I was gazing
at the interior of the Han ship.
This ship was not unlike the great dirigibles of the Twentieth Century
in shape, except that it had no suspended control car nor gondolas, no
propellers, and no rudders, aside from a permanently fixed
double-fishtail stabilizer at the rear, and a number of "keels" so
arranged as to make the most of the
epeller ray airlift columns.
Its width was probably twice as great as its depth, and its length about
twice its width. That is to say, it was about 100 feet from the main
keel to the top-deck at their maximum distance from each other, about
200 feet wide amidship, and between 400 and 500 feet long. It had in
addition to the top-deck, three interior decks. In its general curvature
the ship was a compromise between a true streamline design and a
flattened cylinder.
For a distance of probably 75 to 100 feet back of the nose there were no
decks except that formed by the bottom of the hull. But from this point
back the decks ran to within a few feet of the stern.
At various spots on the hull curvature in this great "hollow nose" were
platforms from which the crews of the dis ray generators and the
electronoscope and electronophone devices manipulated their
apparatus.
Into this space from the forward end of the center deck, projected the
control room. The walls, ceiling and floor of this compartment were
simply the surfaces of viewplates. There were no windows or other
openings.
The operation officers within the control room, so far as their vision
was concerned, might have imagined themselves suspended in space, except
for the transmitters, levers and other signalling devices around them.
Five officers, I understand, had their posts in the control room; the
captain, and the chiefs of scopes, phones, dis rays and
navigation. Each of these was in continuous interphone communication
with his subordinates in other posts throughout the ship. Each
viewplate had its phone connecting with its "eye machines" on the
hull, the crews of which would switch from telescopic to normal view at
command.
There were, of course, many other viewplates at executive posts
throughout the ship.
* * * * *
The Hans followed a peculiar system in the command of their ships. Each
ship had a double complement of officers. Active Officers and Base
Officers. The former were in actual, active charge of the ship and its
apparatus. The latter remained at the ship base, at desks equipped with
viewplates and phones, in constant communication with their
"correspondents," on the ship. They acted continuously as consultants,
observers, recorders and advisors during the flight or action. Although
not primarily accountable for the operation of the ship, they were
senior to, and in a sense responsible for the training and efficiency of
the Active Officers.
The ionomagnetic coils, which served as the casings, "plates" and
insulators of the gigantic condensers, were all located amidship on a
center line, reaching clear through from the top to the bottom of the
hull, and reaching from the forward to the rear rep-ray generators; that
is, from points about 110 feet from bow and stern. The crew's quarters
were arranged on both sides of the coils. To the outside of these, where
the several decks touched the hull, were located the various pieces of
phone, scope and dis ray apparatus.
The ship into which I was gazing with my ultroscope (at a telescopic
and penetrative setting), carried a crew of perhaps 150 men all told.
And except for the strained looks on their evil yellow faces I might
have been tempted to believe I was looking on some Twenty-fifth Century
pleasure excursion, for there was no running around nor appearance of
activity.
The Hans loved their ease, and despite the fact that this was a war
ship, every machine and apparatus in it was equipped with a complement
of seats and specially designed couches, in which officers and men
reclined as they gazed at their viewplates, and manipulated the little
sets of controls placed convenient to their hands.
* * * * *
The picture was a comic one to me, and I laughed, wondering how such
soft creatures had held the sturdy and virile American race in complete
subjection for centuries. But my laugh died as my mind grasped at the
obvious explanation. These Hans were only soft physically. Mentally they
were hard, efficient, ruthless, and conscienceless.
Impulsively I nosed my swooper down toward the ship and shot toward it
at full rocket power. I had acted so swiftly that I had covered nearly
half the distance toward the ship before my mind slowly drifted out of
the daze of my emotion. This proved my undoing. Their scopeman saw me
too quickly, for in heading directly at them I became easily visible,
appearing as a steady, expanding point. Looking through their hull, I
saw the crew of a dis ray generator come suddenly to attention. A
second later their beam engulfed me.
For an instant my heart stood still. But the inertron shell of my
swooper was impervious to the disintegrator ray. I was out of luck,
however, so far as my control over my tiny ship was concerned. I had
been hurtling in a direct line toward the ship when the beam found me.
Now, when I tried to swerve out of the beam, the swooper responded but
sluggishly to the shift I made in the rocket angle. I was, of course,
traveling straight down a beam of vacuum. As my craft slowly nosed to
the edge of the beam, the air rushing into this vacuum from all sides
threw it back in again.
Had I shot my ship across one of these beams at right angles, my
momentum would have carried me through with no difficulty. But I had no
momentum now except in the line of the beam, and this being a vacuum
now, my momentum, under full rocket power, was vastly increased. This
realization gave me a second and more acute thrill. Would I be able to
check my little craft in time, or would I, helpless as a bullet itself,
crash through the shell of the Han ship to my own destruction?
I shut off my rocketmotor, but noticed no practical diminution of speed.
* * * * *
It was the fear of the Hans themselves that saved me. Through my
ultroscope I saw sudden alarm on their faces, hesitation, a frantic
officer in the control room jabbering into his phone. Then shakily the
crew flipped their beam off to the side. The jar on my craft was
terrific. Its nose caught the rushing tumble of air first, of course,
and my tail sailing in a vacuum, swung around with a sickening wrench.
My swooper might as well have been a barrel in the tumult of waters at
the foot of Niagara. What was worse, the Hans kept me in that condition.
Three of their beams were now playing in my direction, but not directly
on me except for split seconds. Their technique was to play their beams
around me more than on me, jerking them this way and that, so as to form
vacuum pockets into which the air slapped and roared as the beams
shifted, tossing me around like a chip.
Desperately I tried to bring my craft under control, to point its nose
toward the Han ship and discharge an explosive rocket. Bitterly I cursed
my self-confidence, and my impulsive action. An experienced pilot of the
present age would have known better than to be caught shooting straight
down a dis ray beam. He would have kept his ship shooting constantly
at some angle to it, so that his momentum would carry him across it if
he hit it. Too late I realized that there was more to the business of
air fighting, than instinctive skill in guiding a swooper.
At last, when for a fraction of a second my nose pointed toward the
Hans, I pressed the button of my rocket gun. I registered a hit, but not
an accurate one. My projectile grazed an upper section of the ship's
hull. At that it did terrific damage. The explosion battered in a
section about fifty feet in diameter, partially destroying the top deck.
At the same instant I had shot my rocket, I had, in a desperate attempt
to escape that turmoil of tumbling air, released a catch and dropped all
that it was possible to drop of my ultron ballast. My swooper shot
upward, like a bubble streaking for the surface of water.
I was free of the trap in which I had been caught, but unable to take
advantage of the confusion which reigned on the Han ship.
I was as helpless to maneuver my ship now, in its up-rush, as when I had
been tumbling in the air pockets. Moreover I was badly battered from
plunging around in my shell like a pellet in a box, and partially
unconscious.
I was miles in the air when I recovered myself. The swooper was steady
enough now, but still rising, my instruments told me, and traveling in a
general westward direction at full speed. Far below me was a sea of
clouds, stretching from horizon to horizon, and through occasional
breaks in its surface I could see still other seas of clouds at lower
levels.