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Returning to his command-post at the telecast station, the terrain-board showed that the perimeter of defense had been pushed out in a bulge at the north-west corner; the TV-screen pictured a crude breastwork of petrified tree-trunks, sandbags, mining machinery, packing-cases and odds-and-ends, upon which Wallingsby's native laborers were working under guard while a skirmish-line of Kragans had been thrown out another four or five hundred yards and were exchanging potshots with Skilkans on the gullied hillside.
Some of the Skilkans were trying to get over the high fences on either side of the road really stockades of petrified tree-trunks. Others were firing, and this time they were shooting at the airjeep. It took one hit from a heavy shellosaur-rifle, and immediately the driver banked and turned away from the road, heading back.
A voice at the telecast station furnished it; he punched it out. "Von Schlichten, right overhead. That you, Major Falkenberg? Nice going, major; how are your casualties?" "Not too bad. Twenty or thirty Kragans and loyal Skilkans, and eight Terrans killed; about as many wounded." "Pretty good, considering what you're running into. Get many of your Kragans mounted on those hipposaurs?"
There was cheering, human and Ullran, from inside the battered defense-perimeter; combat-cars, airjeeps, and improvised bombers lifted out to strafe the Skilkans on the ground, and the four air-tanks moved out to take position and open fire with their 90-mm.'s, helping to flush King Firkked's regulars and auxiliaries out of the gullies and ruins and drive them south along the mountain, away from where the ship would land and also away from the city of Skilk.
Firkked, unable to support the weight of his dense-tissued body on one leg, stumbled; von Schlichten ran him neatly through the breast with his sword and through the throat with the bayonet. There was silence in the throne-room for an instant, and then, with a horrible collective shriek, the Skilkans threw down their weapons.
Inside the city, he found that the Zirk cavalry from Krink had thrust up one of the broader streets to within a thousand yards of the Palace, and, supported by infantry, contragravity, and a couple of air-tanks, were pounding and hacking at a mass of Skilkans whose uniform lack of costume prevented distinguishing between soldiery and townsfolk.
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