We Sink The Ground Ships

: The Airlords Of Han

Boss Handan, of the Winslows, a giant of a man, a two-fisted fighter and

a leader of great sagacity, had been selected by the council as our Boss

pro tem, and having given the scatter signal to the council, he

retired to our general headquarters, which we had established on Second

Mountain 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 eve
y

detail of the battle on the wonderful system of viewplates our ultrono

engineers had constructed through a series of relays from ultroscope

observation posts and individual "cameramen."



Two hours before dawn our long distance scopemen reported a squadron

of "ground ships" leaving the enemy's disintegrator wall, and heading

rapidly somewhat to the south of us, toward the site of the ancient city

of Newark. The ultroscopes could detect no canopy operation. This in

itself was not significant, for they were penetrating hills in their

lines of vision, most of them, which of course blurred their pictures to

a slight extent. But by now we had a well-equipped electronoscope

division, 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 the

import of the message on the Bosses' channel become clear than we heard

his personal command snapped out over the long-gunners' general channel.



Nine hundred and seventy long-gunners on the south and west sides of the

city, concealed in the dark fastnesses of the forests and hillsides,

leaped to their guns, switched on their dial lights, and flipped the

little lever combinations on their pieces that automatically registered

them on the predetermined position of map section HM-243-839, setting

their 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 country

literally blew up, in a fiery eruption that shot a mile into the air.

The concussion, when it reached me, was terrific. The light was

blinding.



And our scopemen reported the instant annihilation of the squadron.



* * * * *



What happened, of course, was this; the Hans knew nothing of our ability

to see at night through our ultroscopes. Regarding itself as invisible

in the darkness, and believing our instruments would pick up its

location when its dis rays went into operation, the squadron made the

fatal error of not turning on its canopies.



To say that consternation overwhelmed the Han high command would be

putting it mildly. Despite their use of code and other protective

expedients, we picked up enough of their messages to know that the

incident badly demoralized them.



Their next attempt was made in daylight. I was aloft in my swooper at

the time, hanging motionless about a mile up. Below, the groundships

looked like a number of oval lozenges gliding across a map, each

surrounded by a circular halo of luminescence that was its dis ray

canopy.



They had nosed up over the spiny ridge of what once had been Jersey

City, 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 of

them, they began to beam a path for themselves through the forest. In my

ears sounded the ultrophone instructions of my executives to the

long-gunners in the forest, and one by one I heard the girls report

their rapid retirement with their guns and other inertron-lightened

equipment. I located several of them with my scopes, with which I could,

of course, focus through the leafy screen above them, and noted with

satisfaction the unhurried speed of their movements.



On ploughed the Han wedge, while my girls separated before it and

retired to the sides. With a rapidity much greater than that of the

ships themselves, the beams penetrated deeper and deeper into the

forest, playing continuously in the same direction, literally melting

their way through, as a stream of hot water might melt its way through a

snow bank.



Then a curious thing happened. One of the ships near one wing of the

wedge must have passed over unusually soft ground, or perhaps some

irregularity in the control of its canopy generator caused it to dig

deeper 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 beam

slicing 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 the

squadron could not stop. As soon as a ship stood still, its canopy ray

playing continuously in one spot, the ground around it was annihilated

to a continuously increasing depth. A couple of them tried it, but

within a space of seconds, they had dug such deep holes around

themselves that they had difficulty in climbing out. Their commanders,

however, had the foresight to switch off their offense rays, and so

damaged no more of their comrades.



* * * * *



I switched in with my ultrophone on Boss Handan's channel, intending to

report my observation, but found that one of our swooper scouts, who,

like myself, was hanging above the Hans, was ahead of me. Moreover, he

was reporting a suddenly developed idea that resulted in the untimely

end of the Hans' groundship threat.



"Those ships can't climb out of deep holes, Boss," he was saying

excitedly. "Lay a big barrage against them--no, not on them--in front of

them--always in front of them. Pull it back as they come on. But churn

h--l out of the ground in front of them! Get the rocketmen to make a

penetrative time rocket. Shoot it into the ground in front of them, deep

enough to be below their canopy ray, see, and detonate under them as

they go over it!"



I heard Handan's roar of exultation as I switched off again to order a

barrage from my Wyoming girls. Then I threw my rocket motor to full

speed and shot off a mile to one side, and higher, for I knew that soon

there would be a boiling eruption below.



No smoke interfered with my view of it, for our atomic explosive was

smokeless in its action. A line of blinding, flashing fire appeared in

front of the groundship wedge. The ships ploughed with calm

determination toward it, but it withdrew before them, not steadily, but

jerkily intermittent, so that the ground became a series of gigantic

humps, ridges and shell holes. Into these the Han ships wallowed,

plunging ponderously yet not daring to stop while their protective

canopy rays played, not daring to shut off these active rays.



One overturned. Our observers reported it. The result was a hail of

rocket shells directly on the squadron. These could not penetrate the

canopies of the other ships, but the one which had turned turtle was

blown to fragments.



The squadron attempted to change its course and dodge the barrier in

front of it. But a new barrier of blazing detonations and churned earth

appeared 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 could

not extricate themselves. One by one their canopy rays were shut off, or

the ships somersaulted off the knolls on which they perched, as their

canopies melted the ground away from around them. So one by one they

were destroyed.



Thus the second ground sortie of the Hans was annihilated.



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