Read Ebook: The Lightning's Course by Peterson John Victor Forte John R John Robert Illustrator

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 249 lines and 12277 words, and 5 pages

"Looking for someone, Lieutenant?"

Slowly he turned to confront Captain Meevo of the Defense Squadron--Meevo of whom he had thought but seconds past.

"Yes, sir. What does this mean? Where are the men?"

Meevo's thin, haughty face twisted cruelly. "The men have been taken care of; and this means that the old regime is going out; that a new race shall rule all of this system when the Legion returns from Sirius!"

"A new race?"

"Yes. Mine, the Vrons, true blood of Alpha Centauri--"

Frederix could sense again the mystic alien strength of this man who had joined the Legion years ago during the Liberation; that subtle magnetism at which he had so often wondered, which kept him now from plunging recklessly into that leveled weapon.

"And just how do you propose doing this?"

"But you shall only see the beginning here, Frederix. Now be so kind as to go out to the control turret."

Slowly the young ordnance engineer turned and walked out through the glassite tunnel to the turret overlooking the fortress. His heart was hammering madly and his slender hands nervously clenching and unclenching. He forced himself to speak:

"And this Advent. What of that?"

"Three years ago an Armada left Centauri, two thousand light ships armed, as you earthmen say, to the teeth. Three more years and they will be here; and a system ruined by internal revolt will lie helpless for conquest!"

"God!" burst Frederix.

"Call on your God, Earthman, and I will call on mine to speed those mighty ships!"

Frederix forced himself to stop that mad desire to whirl about, to charge Meevo with bare hands. For that would be certain, horrible death with burning disruption in his vitals.

Now he glimpsed Captain Marlin's huddled, ray-ribboned body lying near the smashed controls within the tower. Close by Lieutenant Gorman lay in hideous death.

Strange thoughts passed through his brain. Why did not Meevo, schooled in slaughter, slay him, too?

But Meevo merely motioned him to enter the room; he did so, then the frail, haughty Vron said slowly, relishing the situation with an alien humor which the other could not understand:

"You've about fifteen minutes, Frederix. Fifteen minutes to realize the fact that you'll be blown to bits. When the station goes, Certagarni will revolt; in a few weeks, as the other stations go, Mars will fall completely into chaos.

With that alien idiom uttered, the Vron stepped outside. The great durite door crashed shut, the diallock whirled.

A moment later a small gyrotomic blasted into the night sky and moved swiftly into the northeast towards distant Calidao.

Frederix heard the purring of the electric clock, turned his gaze towards it, and the second hand going 'round, swiftly. He tried the door, turned back into the room. Glassite-durite walls faced him, transparent but comprised of the hardest alloy in the system.

Flicking on a desk lamp, he rummaged around the room. No weapons, no tools.... And the minutes were fleeing--ten minutes more--nine!

And then his eyes fell on a portable cathode ray oscillograph, and inspiration lighted up his rugged, bearded face!

The door was locked by a high frequency radio wave diallock, the most delicate and most burglar proof lock in the system. Its shielded exterior made it invulnerable to the most advanced instruments of a modern Raffles; but its unshielded inner side--

Quickly he plugged in the oscillograph on A.C., brought it to the door, adjusted the wires from the jack-top binding posts to the terminal of the lock, stepped up the anode voltage, cut in the sweep circuit and paused for a long moment to still the quivering of his hand as he reached for the diallock.

His eyes were glued to the greenish fluorescence of the slow-screen tube as he started twirling the combination. Waves pulsed evenly across the grid. And then they jerked almost unnoticeably; a wave-plate had fallen into position! He changed the diallock's direction back slowly. Another variance in the oscillation. Back, again!

The clock purring, purring, and somewhere another clock ticking the doom of the station away.

His whole body was trembling as he made the final turn and was breathlessly rewarded with the sight of a higher frequency wave pulsing smoothly across the tube. The door fell silently open. The clock said a minute to the zero hour!

He raced across the roof, full in the flare of a swirling beacon. Of course he did not see the crawling, bleeding body in the darkness near the radio-room's door, did not hear the hoarse, feeble cry:

He blasted his ship out through the automatic lock at full speed. Seconds later his radio receiver burst into life:

"Calling KBM, Kaa. This is Cravens at Certagarni. Meevo and Frederix killed all the men; sent the squadron to attack Kaa. Station will blow into Hell within a minute. Oh, God, get them--Captain Meevo and Lieutenant Hunter Frederix--traitors! The Cen--"

The weak, quavering voice died away.

He sat in the cushioned seat, stunned by the immensity of the deed and by the startling denunciation he had heard as Cravens, with whom he had conversed so much, Cravens who had made the trio of Andres, Frederix and himself rich indeed in the folklore of the stars--Cravens had named him traitor!

Dave had even taken his transmitter to overhaul the day before. Consequently he could not contact Kaa or Del and protest his innocence, warn them of the awful fullness of the Vron plot, of the Armada. He would probably be shot down should he stumble upon the aerial battle which would soon be waged over Botrodus since Cravens had warned Kaa, the key station there.

As if in attendance upon his thoughts, his open receiver burst, amid general static:

"KBM calling all ships. Apprehend all suspicious craft approaching Botrodus; engage if they refuse to give proper clearance. Meevo--Frederix--if you hear my voice, understand that you will be given no quarter--"

Suddenly another carrier wave whined into the wavelength; Andres' angry voice broke in:

"Blake, you damned fool, Frederix had nothing to do with this!"

"Captain Andres, unless you have absolute proof, please get off the band--"

Silence. Heartbreaking silence. KBM took up again, vainly calling Calidao.

Frederix looked at his directional finder. He was heading for Kaa at nearly a thousand m.p.h. If he changed his course a few degrees and headed for Andres' Rendezvous on the Kaa-Calidao airline, he could call KBM and straighten the matter out. Quickly he made the necessary alterations....

The bitter chill of the Martian night cut through the ship's hull. Locking the robot controls, Frederix slipped on a beryl-durite oxysuit, locked the glassite helmet in place and turned on the thermo-electric unit.

Straight out across the Hargoan Swamps he flew, towards the Rendezvous. And he thought of the past, back before his birth when Andres, as legend ran, had come back from far places, from a memorable battle in Alpha Centauri's vast system, wounded in body, and, his legion buddies whispered, in heart. Aye, even in soul. Rumor had it that he had loved with all the native fire and enthusiasm that were his--fighter extraordinary, D'Artagnan of the Legion. Had loved and lost and something within him had died.

He had for a while lived a hermitary existence in an old Martian ruin on a narrow, arid, mountainous strip cutting across Hargo; but combat, strife, adventure called--

Reenlistment. Out to Lalande 21,185; for Centauri was in peace. Battle after hellborn battle until that lesser and nearer Lalande had found a newbirth of freedom.

But Andres had not embarked upon the twelve-year journey across the 8.4 light years to Sirius in the Legion's stellatomics. He had told Frederix that the day might come when Sol would need him more. And so he remained with the Solarian Defense, clinging to that ancient estate--his Rendezvous where he held communion with his memories and with the ghosts of those who had fallen beside and before his blazing guns--haunting it when on Mars and off duty....

Far to the south Frederix caught the fierce glare of disrupters, of jets flaming in the black, starshot night as furious combat raged. Del, too, was probably there, deep in the bloody game which was his life now--

Onward, onward.

Dawn shot up, breaking with all the suddenness of Martian day. To his right Frederix glimpsed a ship bearing down upon him--a Certagarni ship, named doubtless by a Vron-minded Martian.

Suddenly the savage whine of other atomics crescendoed from above. From the corner of his eye Frederix caught the crimson splurge of a master disrupter from the nose of an insanely-plunging blue ship--a Kaa ship!

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet