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.