The Star Kings

'You stay here!' he ordered. 'I'll put on this fellow's uniform and helmet and it may give me a little better chance.'

In a few minutes, Gordon had struggled into the dead man's black uniform. He jammed on the helmet, then bolstered the atom-gun and slid out into the corridor.

The dark-out was still on, the Dendra cautiously groping its way through self- induced blackness. Gordon started aft.

He had already, during these past days, located the sound of the dark-out generators as coming from aft on the lower deck. He hastened in the direction of that loud whine.

There was no one in the corridor. During dark-out, every man and officer was at action stations.

Gordon reached the end of the corridor. He hurried down a narrow companionway to the lower deck. Here doors were open, and he glanced into the big drive-generator rooms. Officers stood at flight-panels, men watched the gauges of the big, purring energy-drive.

An officer glanced up surprisedly as Gordon quickly passed the door. But his helmet and uniform seemed to reassure the Cloud-man.

'Of course!' Gordon thought. 'The guard I killed would be just returning to his station from locking us up!'

He was now closer to the loud whine of the dark-out generators. They were just forward of the main drive- machinery rooms, and the door of the dark-out room was also open.

Gordon drew his atom-pistol and stepped into the doorway. He looked into a big room whose generators were emitting that loud whine. One whole side of it was a bank of giant vacuum tubes that pulsed with white radiance.

There were two officers and four men in the room. An officer at the switch-panel beyond the tubes turned to speak to a man, and glimpsed Gordon's taut face in the doorway.

'Zarth Arn!' yelled the officer, grabbing for his gun. 'Look out!'

Gordon triggered his pistol. It was the first time he had used one of these weapons and his ignorance betrayed him.

He was aiming at the vacuum tubes across the room but the gun kicked high in his hand. The exploding pellet blasted the ceiling. He flung himself down in a crouch as a pellet from the officer's pistol flicked across the room. It struck the doorframe above his head, flaring instantly.

'General alarm!' the officer was yelling. 'Get-'

Gordon triggered again at that moment. This time he held his weapon down. The atomic pellets from his pistol exploded amid the bank of giant tubes.

Electric fire mushroomed out into the dark-out room! Two men and an officer screamed as raging violet flames enveloped them.

The officer with the gun swung around, appalled. Gordon swiftly shot him. He shot then at the nearest big generator.

His pellet only fused its metal shield. But the giant vacuum tubes were still popping, the whole room an inferno. The two men left there staggered in the violet fires, screaming and falling.

Gordon had recoiled into the corridor. He yelled exultantly as he saw the blackness outside the window suddenly replaced by a vault of brilliant stars.

'Our dark-out has failed!' yelled a voice on one of the upper decks.

Bells shrilled madly. Gordon heard a rush of feet as Cloud-men started pouring down from an upper deck toward the dark-out room.

17: Wrecked in the Nebula

Gordon glimpsed a dozen League soldiers bursting into the farther end of this lower-deck corridor. He knew that his game was up, but he turned his atom-pistol savagely loose upon them.

The pellets flew down the passage and exploded. The little flares of force blasted down half the Cloud-men there. But the others raced forward with wolfish shouts. And his pistol went dead in his hand, its loads exhausted.

Then it happened! The whole fabric of the Dendra rocked violently and there was a crash of riving plates and girders. All space outside the ship seemed illuminated by a brilliant flare.

'That Empire cruiser has spotted us and is shelling us!' yelled a wild voice. 'We're hit!'

Continued rending crash of parting struts and plates was accompanied by the shrill singing of escaping air. Then came the quick slam-slam of automatic bulkheads closing.

The corridor in which Gordon stood was suddenly divided by the automatic doors closing! He was cut off from the men at its end.

'Battle-stations! Space-suits on!' rang Durk Undis' sharp voice from the annunciators throughout the ship. 'We're crippled and have to fight it out with that Empire cruiser!'

Bells were ringing, alarms buzzing. Then came the swift shudder of recoil from big atom-guns broadsiding. Far away in space, out there in the vast blackness, Gordon glimpsed points of light suddenly flaring and vanishing.

A duel in space, this! His sudden sabotage of the darkout concealment had exposed the Dendra to the Empire cruiser which it had been trying to evade. That cruiser had instantly opened fire.

'Lianna!' Gordon thought wildly. 'If she's been hurt-'

He turned and scrambled up the companionway to the mid-deck.

Lianna came running to meet him in the corridor there. Her face was pale but unafraid.

'There are space-suits in the locker here!' she exclaimed, 'Quick, Zarth! The ship may be hit again any moment!'

The girl had kept her head enough to find one of the lockers of space-suits placed at strategic locations throughout the ship.

In their cabin, she and Gordon hastily struggled into the suits. They were of stiffened metallic fabric, with spherical glassite helmets whose oxygenators started automatically when they were closed.

Lianna spoke, and he heard her voice normally by means of the short-range audio apparatus built into each suit.

She cried to him, 'That Empire cruiser is going to shell this ship to fragments now that it can't go dark!'

Gordon was dazed by the strangeness of the scene from the windows. The Dendra, maneuvering at high speed to baffle the radar of the other ship, was loosing its heavy atom-shells continuously.

Far in space, tiny pinpoints of light flared and vanished swiftly. So tremendous was the distance at which this duel was being conducted, that the gigantic flares of the exploding atom-shells were thus reduced in size.[9]

Space again burst into blinding light about them as the Empire cruiser's shells ranged close. The Dendra rocked on its beam-ends from the soundless explosions of force.

Gordon and Lianna were hurled to the floor by the violent shocks. He was aware that the drone of the drive- generators had fallen to a ragged whine. More automatic bulkheads were slamming shut.

'Drive-rooms half wrecked!' came a shout through his space-suit audiophone. 'Only two generators going!'

'Keep them running!' rang Durk Undis' fierce order. 'We'll disable that Empire ship with our new weapon, in a few moments!'

Their new weapon? Gordon swiftly recalled how Shorr Kan had affirmed that the League had a potent new weapon of offense that could strike down any ship.

'Lianna, they've got their hands too full to bother with us right now!' Gordon exclaimed. 'This is our chance to get away! If we can get off in one of the spaceboats, we can reach that Empire ship!'

Lianna did not hesitate. 'I am willing to try it, Zarth!'