Disaster by L. Ron Hubbard

Author:L. Ron Hubbard [Hubbard, L. Ron]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Fantasy
Goodreads: 996393
Publisher: San Val
Published: 1986-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 4

The tunnel walls were rushing by. Ahead I saw the stars.

We burst out upon a world of franticness.

The dull green moonlight fell upon a camp stirred up like bog beetles running madly everywhere.

Even through the window of the giant flying cannon I could hear the strident screaming of alarms.

Fifteen thousand men were pouring to their batteries of guns.

Lombar was climbing. The engines screamed. I looked wildly everywhere.

I could see no tug, no Heller, nothing!

He should be hovering over Spiteos to let the Countess off. But well away from it and looking down on it, I could see nothing.

That didn't mean he wasn't there. Absorbo-coat would not reflect any light or beam. But neither would it pass light and that tug should make a shadow against the desert sand, against the stars or moon.

All our screens were blank except for the ground below.

Then suddenly, there it was, directly above the camp! The tug! A black silhouette!

Abruptly, like a ring of blue electric flame, a thousand defense guns opened up!

Arcs of fire two miles long carved a savage geometric pattern in the sky. The apex of the two cones was the silhouette!

They must be missing!

It was still there!

The amount of fire redoubled from the ground.

Lombar, snarling so his teeth showed, turned the nose of the flying cannon in a deadly curve.

His fingers pressed the trips!

Our vessel bucked like a thing gone mad!

The screech of our missiles pierced my ears!

We must be missing!

There was no target burst of flame.

The silhouette was still there!

An illusion!

Heller was throwing a silhouette illusion of the tug above the camp!

He must be somewhere else!

I glanced out my window at Spiteos, over to our right. I could see it was very black there even with my flame-dazzled eyes.

I looked back at our viewscreens.

One was pointing at Spiteos.

There!

There was something there!

I looked closer.

A ladder! Lacking absorbo-coat, it was reflecting on our screen!

In the middle of the dangling ladder was a figure. That would be Krak!

"Lombar!" I screamed. "There! There! There!" I was pointing frantically.

He saw it.

He turned the ship.

With snarls he turned his gun controls to maximum barrage!

He pressed the trips.

The light blinded me. The savage burst almost seemed to tear the heavens up!

A second passed. Then two. Then three. I could see again.

Something was falling.

Down, down, down it went, plunging into the abyss. It had a mile to go.

It was not the tug.

It seemed that a body had been blasted! It was falling away! Frantically I looked at the heavens.

A shadow between us and the moon! "Lombar!" I screamed. "Up there!"

Oh, where was Heller now?

I quickly added it up.

Our barrage must have dislodged Krak and sent her falling to her death.

Heller would be frothing for revenge!

"Lombar!" I screamed. "Get away from here!"

The Chief of the Apparatus was looking savagely around. The lust to kill was over him like sheen. "Where is the insolent (bleepard)?" he howled. "Royal officer! Royal (bleep)! Let me at him!" he raved.

I felt a jolt.

It was as if we had run into a wall.

Yet we were two miles above the planet surface!

I looked anxiously at the throttles.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.