BOOOOOM!
A moment later a concussion wave hit the tank a harder blow than ever could have been delivered by a warship shell!
WHOOOOM!
The tank was thrown backwards fifty yards in a breath! Men and huts and buildings were flying through the air as though propelled by the most monstrous hurricane that ever hit a planet's face. Snelz had blown the Camp Endurance shell magazine with enough explosive to level a town! And the magazine had contained enough charge to level a city! Three hundred warships, hovering too low and in atmosphere, caught the full blast of the concussion wave! They went hurtling end over end up into the sky like thrown chaff. They tumbled in the torn air, battered out of control. High overhead, well above the atmosphere at a height of three hundred miles, a thousand rebel troopships hung, watching the debacle. They were ignored, as the intercepts had said they would be, by the neutral Fleet. They dived! In a dazing rush they slashed down to the plain like hawks. Before the dust of the blown magazine had settled– indeed, before the smoke of the explosion had had a chance to rise fully into the air-a hundred thousand rebel troops under Prince Mortiiy were leaping down from airlocks upon the desert sand. With a howling rush, feet hammering, emitting a high keening yell, they fell upon the hated Apparatus survivors with electric bayonets and handguns that bellowed rage point-blank! Their uniforms were tatters, their faces gauntly starved, but they made up for everything else with their pent-up avarice for revenge. There was no quarter given. The few guns the Apparatus got into action vanished under a torrent of flashing blades. Hatred cut a searing swath across Camp Kill. A hundred and seventy-two thousand Apparatus troops were dead in less than half an hour, leaving only some ships and the gun crews on the castle still fighting. They could not be touched by such an assault. But the slaughter of the Apparatus infantry was not the end or purpose of the Battle of Camp Kill. It was only the preparation.
CHAPTER 3
Jettero Heller, aboard the Rebel flagship Retribution, a hundred miles above the battle, gave his weapons belt a hitch. He picked up his helmet from a bench. He looked across the bridge where stood Prince Mortiiy, Hightee Heller and the Countess Krak, spots of color amidst the drab uniforms of the rebel general staff. "I think it's time," he said. "That battle looks about over." "Oh, Jettero," said the Countess Krak, "can't you let somebody else do it? Guns are still firing from the castle! It's dangerous!" Heller said, "Life usually is. Now, don't follow me down too close, as I may still draw fire." "I think," said Mortiiy, "I should make a pass with the Retribution. This ship is armored and can stand some heavy jolts." "No, Your Highness," said Heller. "You're carrying valuable cargo: yourself, my sister and my lady love, to name a few. I've just run out of heroic speeches, so goodbye." The airlock of the tug had been hugged against the Retribution's side and Heller went through and closed it with a clang. He hit the local controls a clip and the Prince Cau-ccdsia jumped sidewise and then hurtled straight down. Two Apparatus vessels, recovered from their tumble, were trying to box in a rebel sighting ship, but he ignored the fight. He didn't have any guns anyway. Fifty miles, twenty miles, down, down, down he went. And then he was in the drifting battle dust above the mile-deep chasm. Yes, there was still some shooting. The guns on top of Spiteos were manned, firing. Heller was a silhouette against the sun. He jinked and shells went screaming by. He suddenly dived straight down into the mile-deep chasm. As no one had ever anticipated an attack from there, defense artillery on the castle top had never been installed to depress so low. The vertical walls were flowing up on either side of him. There were ledges and he was surprised to see that now and then executed men had hit and hung there, never falling to the bottom. It was a grisly place. He had no interest in what might lie on the canyon floor. He halted the tug halfway down and looked up. A rebel ship was engaging the defense guns on the top of the castle high above. Great gouts of furious flame were bursting out from the black rock: some of the basalt, turned molten, ran in a stream of fire past the tug. Well, they'd not make much of a dent on this massive hulk that way, Heller thought. Let them clean off a little more artillery and he'd go up. He rose slowly up the black canyon wall. Jockeying the tug, had he been able to reach out through the windscreen he could have touched it with his hand. He was inspecting. Then he found it: ground level, just opposite the other rim. He cruised along horizontally. He counted the twenty spears he had set to knife into this. Somebody up on the castle roof high above must have him on a scope. A hand grenade exploded nearby and made the tug shake. He turned the tug to stand on its tail and pressed a firing trigger. A barrage of blueflash raked the high battlement vertically above. He hoped whoever it was up there had been looking. Just to make sure, he turned on the silver coating of the tug, making it totally visible. That would attract attention. He fired another blueflash barrage. Now that he could be seen, the rebel warship held its fire. Heller looked skyward and saw nothing. He had to resort to a scope. Yes, there was the Retribution up there. Everything was in place. He settled himself into the local-pilot chair and fastened his belts. He reached for the tug controls. Motors screamed in the rear of the tug. With the speed of a vaulter, he went straight up, flat against the castle wall. Over the top of the battlement he went. With a sudden dart, the tug levelled out. It lanced across the top of the castle, away from the chasm. A blastcannon roared close to him with a flash. His tractor engines were screaming like banshees! He pushed all his throttles home. Planetary drives, Will-be Was, tractors, everything! The tug surged, snapped back, surged, snapped back. It was all he could do to stay in the pilot seat, even with belts! With yank after yank he was trying to pull the whole vast castle over! Surge after surge after surge, the tractor beams held on. Roar after roar after roar, the engines bit. Then there was a shuddering difference. A sound like a sighing screech was transmitted through the tug. The fault that he had fired into, in the chasm side of the castle with the twenty rock-splitting spears, was parting. The drives shuddered forward without surging back, pulling with a deafening thunder of power. Suddenly all engines went into a raving scream. Heller slammed his drives shut. Behind him he heard a moaning cry as though some monster was dying. Then there came a tremendous roar, enough to shake a planet. The tall, tall castle of solid black rock had turned over on its side. It was followed by the death rattle of falling stones. Heller turned off the tractor beams and a few boulders dropped out of their invisible net. He built some altitude and looked back. The great castle of Spiteos lay supine and broken. But that wasn't all. Heller smiled. When he had surveyed it originally, he had spotted where the storehouses were. And his guess at their content had been right. Strewn in piles upon the plain were opium and heroin, like vomit that had been thrown up by a stricken beast. Then he stared. That wasn't all that was happening down there! Evidently, having fought their way past paralyzed or terrified guards and gotten to the now-exposed ramps, literally thousands of political prisoners were pouring out of the caves and tunnels far below the level where the castle had broken. They were spreading like a swarm of insects from a disrupted nest, uncounted numbers of them. Even from this height their naked filth, rags and protruding bones were showing. Starved into near insanity, frenzied now in their sudden freedom, they raced away, scrambling over the debris of the wrecked castle, fanning out across the plain. Heller looked up. Yes, the Retribution was there. The cameras which she carried had been shooting everything that happened and they were catching this. Not only that, with the power of a warship's communication drives, the Retribution was forcing in onto the Homeview band, overpowering the transmission from Joy City as before. Heller flipped a switch, to catch the screen and make sure. The Retribution was so close to hand that there was hardly any of the Joy City transmission visible here, but Heller could dimly make out the under-picture. The Retribution'?, several cameras were following various mobs of escaping prisoners. Heller smiled. What a black eye for Hisst: the "deserted" fortress was shown to be an Apparatus prison. And then he saw something that caused him to freeze. The real purpose of this raid was to display to Voltar that Spiteos did contain drugs. The cameras had caught them strewing across the plain. But now a group of prisoners, reaching that spot, starved, must have thought it was edible flour. Fully two hundred of them had stopped. They scooped up handfuls of it, tasting it. Heller clipped on his powerful speakers. "GET AWAY FROM THAT!" he shouted down. "DON'T EAT THAT STUFF! IT'S POISON!" A camera had zeroed in on them. Heller had them up close on the screen. He did not know exactly what chemicals they might be. Opium? Heroin? Some cutting agent? Before he could even yell again, a terrible thing happened. The prisoners suddenly went into agonizing convulsions! It was on the screen. It was going to all Voltar. Rebel infantrymen had reached the place. They were pushing at the prisoners, probably getting orders from the Retribution, trying to get the prisoners away from the strewn piles. Some of the prisoners, instead of welcoming deliverers, began to fight like madmen! They had gone crazy with chemicals even after just a taste! Later they would find that a lot of what the prisoners had grabbed was not morphine or opium or heroin but the adulterative elements which were there in vast supply to be used in cutting, and they included powdered strychnine. But the picture said to any viewer all it needed to say. True to Hightee's statement earlier that day, Spiteos was full of something stored by Hisst to be used against the population and that something drove men mad! And here was Hightee's voice again, ringing loud and clear: "Citizens of Voltar! You have seen that what I told you is true! ARMY, FLEET, POLICE, ALL DECENT MEN, HEAR ME! SLAUGHTER THE APPARATUS AND HUNT AND KILL THE USURPER LOMBAR HISST!" ^Chapter Lombar Hisst lay in the cabin of the tank. The vehicle was upside down. His head had rammed into the chest of the driver who lay there, neck broken, dead. The padded interior muted sound but he had heard infantry yells outside, shots and screams. Just a short time ago the whole area had been shaken by something falling down. He was playing it very quiet. Apparently they had missed, somehow, the fact that he was there. Maybe from outside it looked like just another overturned, wrecked tank; perhaps several of them were lying about. Sooner or later some infantry would start inspecting the wrecks to see if there was anyone still alive in them. He knew he was in a very tight spot. His mind was racing. He crawled across the tank roof, which was now the floor. He inspected the controls. He knew how to drive these things, none better. The controls seemed undamaged. But he needed information. Just how tight was this spot that he was in? He fiddled with a knob. A screen on the panel lit up with Homeview. The face of Hightee Heller, upside down! He heard her message with a shudder. But when the message reached his name, the shudder turned to icy rage. It was no news that everyone was after him-he knew that all the time. The news was that these were rebels and they were invading Voltar! How would the Fleet take this? How would the Army react? He thought he knew but he would make sure. He fully intended to best the lot and still come out on top. He had every confidence in his destiny. He found the radio panel in the semidark. He fished a dial, trying to find an Army channel. He knew he couldn't tap into the Army General Staff with this rig but it was certain that he could intercept lower echelons. He sorted through the noise for some time. He had one: the nasal twang of a typical field grade Army officer! "… But I just heard from the General Staff, Jowper. I don't think they know tup from turds! They're all confused. They say it doesn't matter if somebody stored some powder in Spiteos: the situation is political. The center of government is Palace City and as long as that's intact, we're neutral–Yeah, I know, Jowper. But you just hold your regiment in check…" Elation soared through Hisst. He punched some buttons, spinning through the digitals of Fleet echelon bands. A voice sprang up, the shrill accent of a space officer: "Well, I know how you feel at squadron. I'd like to jump in and help the rebels myself, but as long as Palace City holds, the Fleet admirals think we'd be classed as rebels if we pitched in. Nobody has ever made a dent in Palace City and the Lord of Fleet is there, so you just hold your squadron where it is and hands off. And that's final. End." Hisst let out a sharp breath. The Army and Fleet were still neutral. The rebels were only succeeding in stirring up the civilian population, and to Hells with the riffraff. Lying on the tank ceiling, Hisst began to plan. He reached into his blouse for a packet of cocaine he always kept there for emergencies. He took a small pinch and sniffed it. He felt his psychic powers rise; he experienced an enormous surge of self-confidence. His mind began to race. The plan came to him. He had resources he had not used. With the overwhelming numbers of Army and Fleet on the sidelines, he could win easily. He picked up a microphone. He punched in an Apparatus command frequency that was totally secure. He got through to Apparatus Staging Area Number One and shortly was connected to General Muk. "Lombar? I mean, Your Majesty?" said General Muk. "I see they've spilled the whole reserve of drugs. What are we going to do? Do you want this invasion fleet to take off at once and tend to getting more?" "That would take three months there and back," said Lombar. "Listen to this plan. Relay it to your units and follow it exactly. I am certain that these rebels are going to attack Palace City next. It's impregnable. Wait until the rebels have surrounded it. Then scramble your entire invasion force, wipe them dut of the sky and hit them in the rear. With your three thousand ships and two and a half million men, you can't miss." "Brilliant!" said General Muk, "The Army and the Fleet are still neutral. The Domestic Police are in such a mess we can discount them." "Exactly," said Lombar. "And when we've mopped up the rebels-don't leave a single one of them alive!– we'll use your force to slaughter dissident elements in the streets. When we have that under control and new criminal forces in control, you can return to your invasion plans and we'll subdue the remainder of the Confederacy with the drugs that you bring back from Earth.". "Splendid!" said Muk. "You're a genius, Your Majesty. I have no doubt that we can win now." "Nor have I," said Hisst and clicked off. He laughed a short barking laugh. He had not told Muk part of his plan: it consisted of making very certain that the rebels attacked Palace City at once. In all the history of Voltar, the place had never fallen but, cream on cream, he was going to bait the trap.