United States or Niger ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
He continued his crisp report, neglecting not the smallest detail, while their tiny craft was drawn inexorably toward a redly impermeable veil; continued it until their lifeboat, still intact, shot through that veil and he found himself unable to move. He was conscious, he was breathing normally, his heart was beating; but not a voluntary muscle would obey his will. Fleet Against Planetoid
The heavy cruiser Chicago hung motionless in space, thousands of miles distant from the warring fleets of space-ships so viciously attacking and so stubbornly defending the planetoid of the enemy. In the captain's sanctum Lyman Cleveland crouched tensely above his ultra-cameras, his sensitive fingers touching lightly their micrometric dials. His body was rigid, his face was set and drawn.
And through that terrific conduit came speeding package after package of destruction. Bombs, and armor-piercing shells, gas shells, and shells of poisonous and corrosive fluids followed each other in close succession. The surviving scientists of the planetoid, expert gunners and ray-men all, destroyed many of the projectiles, but it was not humanly possible to frustrate them all.
For Roger's analytical detectors had stood him in good stead during those frightful minutes in the course of which the planetoid had borne the brunt of Nerado's superhuman attack; in such good stead that from the records of those ingenious instruments he and his scientists had been able to reconstruct not only the generators of the attacking forces, but also the screens employed by the amphibians in the neutralization of similar beams.
"Yes, yes!" exclaimed several others, "there are inhabitants upon it, but what giants!" "What monsters!" "Don't you see?" exclaimed an excited savant. "They are the Martians!" The startling truth burst upon the minds of all. Here upon this little planetoid were several of the gigantic inhabitants of the world that we were going to attack.
He stared, mouth open, then yelled: "Roger is here, rebuilding his planetoid! Roger Carries On For gray Roger had not perished in the floods of Nevian energy which had destroyed his planetoid. While those terrific streamers of force emanating from the crimson obscurity surrounding the amphibians' space-ship were driving into his defensive screens, Roger sat impassive and immobile at his desk.
Once in the air lock, he touched the control stud that would close the outer door, pump air into the waiting room, and open the inner door. Here was his greatest point of danger greater, even, than the danger of coming to the planetoid, or the danger of waiting nineteen days for the coming of the supply ship.
Roumann hurried into the pilot house, gave a quick glance at the indicator, and exclaimed: "We are nearing a planetoid, or, as some call them, an asteroid!" "Is there any danger?" asked Mark. "No. Fortunately the instrument gave us timely warning. I shall simply steer to avoid it. It is a small, unnamed planet flying around in space. There are many of them."
"Report to me here at once!" "The planetoid is lost," he informed his select group of scientists when they had assembled, "and we must abandon it in exactly fifteen minutes, which will be the time required for the robots to fill this first section with our most necessary machinery and instruments.
From red it flamed quickly through the spectrum, became unbearably violet, then disappeared; and as it disappeared the shielding wall began to give way. It did not cave in abruptly, but softened locally, sagging into a peculiar grouping of valleys and ridges contesting stubbornly every inch of position lost. And gray Roger knew that the planetoid was doomed.
Word Of The Day