But the paste had done its work, and as the semi-circle of wall fell out the soldiers of the Lens leaped through the hole in the still-glowing wall to struggle hand-to-hand against the pirates, now making a desperate last stand. The semi-portables and other heavy ordnance powered from the Brittania were of course useless. Pistols were ineffective against the pirates’ armor of hard alloy; hand-rays were equally impotent against its defensive shields. Now heavy hand-grenades began to rain down among the combatants, blowing Patrolmen and pirates alike to bits—for the outlaw chiefs cared nothing that they killed many of their own men if in so doing they could take toll of the Law. And worse, a crew of gunners was swiveling a mighty projector around upon its hastily-improvised mount to cover that sector of the compartment in which the policemen were most densely massed.
But the minions of the Law had one remaining weapon, carried expressly for this eventuality. The space-axe—a combination and sublimation of battle-axe, mace, bludgeon, and lumberman’s picaroon, a massively needle-pointed implement of potentialities limited only by the physical strength and bodily agility of its wielder.
Now all the men of the Britannia’s storming party were Valerians, and therefore were big, hard, fast, and agile; and of them all their sergeant leader was the biggest, hardest, fastest, and most agile. When the space-tempered apex of that thirty-pound monstrosity, driven by the four-hundred-odd pounds of rawhide and whalebone that was his body, struck pirate armor that armor gave way. Nor did it matter whether or not that hellish beak of steel struck a vital part after crashing through the armor. Head or body, leg or arm, the net result was the same; a man does not fight effectively when he is breathing space in lieu of atmosphere.
VanBuskirk perceived the danger to his men in the slowly turning projector and for the first time called his chief.
“Kim,” he spoke in level tones into his microphone. “Blast that delta-ray, will you? . Or have they cut this beam, so you can’t hear me? . Guess they have.”
“They’ve cut our communication,” he informed his troopers then. “Keep them off me as much as you can and I’ll attend to that delta-ray outfit myself.”
Aided by the massed interference of his men he plunged toward the threatening mechanism, hewing to right and to left as he strode. Beside the temporary projector-mount at last, he aimed a tremendous blow at the man at the delta-ray controls; only to feel the axe flash instantaneously to its mark and strike it with a gentle push, and to see his intended victim float effortless away from the blow. The pirate commander had played his last card: vanBuskirk floundered, not only weightless, but inertialess as well!
But the huge Dutchman’s mind, while not mathematical, was even faster than his muscles, and not for nothing had he spent arduous weeks in inertialess tests of strength and skill. Hooking feet and legs around a convenient wheel he seized the enemy operator and jammed his helmeted head down between the base of the mount and the long, heavy steel lever by means of which it was turned. Then, throwing every ounce of his wonderful body into the effort, he braced both feet against the projector’s grim barrel and heaved. The helmet flew apart like an eggshell, blood and brains gushed out in nauseous blobs: but the delta-ray projector was so jammed that it would not soon again become a threat.
Then vanBuskirk drew himself across the room toward the main control panel of the warship. Officer after officer he pushed aside, then reversed two double-throw switches, restoring gravity and inertia to the riddled cruiser.
In the meantime the tide of battle had continued in favor of the Patrol. Few survivors though there were of the black-and-silver force, of the pirates there were still fewer; fighting now a desperate and hopeless defensive. But in this combat quarter was not, could not be thought of, and Sergeant vanBuskirk again waded into the fray. Four times more his horribly effective hybrid weapon descended like the hammer of Thor, cleaving and crushing its way through steel and flesh and bone. Then, striding to the control board, he manipulated switches and dials, then again spoke evenly to Kinnison.
“You can hear me now, can’t you? . All mopped up—come and get the dope!”
The specialists, headed by Master Technician LaVerne Thorndyke, had been waiting strainingly for that word for minutes. Now they literally flew at their tasks; in furious haste, but following rigidly and in perfect coordination a pre-arranged schedule. Every control and lead, every bus-bar and immaterial beam of force was traced and checked. Instruments and machines were dismantled, sealed mechanisms were ruthlessly torn apart by jacks or sliced open with cutting beams. And everywhere, every thing and every movement was being photographed, charted, and diagrammed.
“Getting the idea now, Kim,” Thorndyke said finally, during a brief lull in his work. “A sweet system .”
“Look at this!” a mechanic interrupted. “Here’s a machine that’s all shot to hell!”
The shielding cover had been torn from a monstrous fabrication of metal, apparently a motor or generator of an exceedingly complex type. The insulation of its coils and windings had fallen away in charred fragments, its copper had melted down in sluggish, viscous streams.
“That’s what we’re looking for!” Thorndyke shouted. “Check those leads! Alpha!”
“Seven-three-nine-four!” and the minutely careful study went on until:
“That’s enough; we’ve got everything we need now. Have you draftsmen and photographers got everything down solid?”
“On the boards!” and “In the cans!” rapped out the two reports as one.
“Then let’s go!”
“And go fast!” Kinnison ordered, briskly. “I’m afraid we’re going to run out of time as it is!”
All hands hurried back into the Brittania, paying no attention to the bodies littering the decks. So desperate was the emergency, each man knew, that nothing could be done about the dead, whether friend or foe. Every resource of mechanism, of brain and of brawn, must needs be strained to the utmost if they themselves were not soon to be in similar case.
“Can you talk, Nels?” demanded Kinnison of his Communications Officer, even before the air-lock had closed.
“No, sir, they’re blanketing us solid,” that worthy replied instantly. “Space’s so full of static you couldn’t drive a power-beam through it, let alone a communicator. Couldn’t talk direct, anyway—look where we are,” and he pointed out in the tank their present location.
“Hm . . . m . . . m. Couldn’t have got much farther away without jumping the galaxy entirely. Boskone got a warning, either from that ship back there or from the disturbance. They’re undoubtedly concentrating on us now . One of them will spear us with a tractor, just as sure as hell’s a man-trap .”
The fledgling commander rammed both hands into his pockets and thought in black intensity. He must get this data back to Base—but how? HOW? Henderson was already driving the vessel back toward Sol with every iota of her inconceivable top speed, but it was out of the question even to hope that she would ever get there. The life of the Brittania was now, he was coldly certain, to be measured in hours—and all too scant measure, even of them. For there must be hundreds of pirate vessels even now tearing through the void, forming a gigantic net to cut off her return to Base. Fast though she was, one of that barricading horde would certainly manage to clamp on a tractor—and when that happened her night was done.
Nor could she fight. She had conquered one first-class war-vessel of the public enemy, it was true; but at what awful cost! One fresh vessel could blast his crippled mount out of space; nor would there be only one. Within a space of minutes after the attachment of a tracer the Brittania would be surrounded by the cream of Boskone’s fighters. There was only one chance; and slowly, thoughtfully, and finally grimly, young Lieutenant Kinnison—now and briefly Captain Kinnison—decided to take it.
“Listen,