'Stand by, all,' said Jerry. 'We're going to attack.' This ship rose, under his sensitive fingers, above its foe. 'Prepare to swing grapples,' Jerry warned. 'Check magnetic plates. OK?' 'Magnetic plates OK' answered Wylie.
'Then hold on!' The ship swooped and fluttered, at times seemingly inviting the fire of the pirates, at times seeming disabled, and darting away as the killer vessel swung itself to deliver a coup de grace.
The scow's grapples swung free—ponderous curved plates at the end of long osmiridium chains. Then down she darted, the grapples clanging against the sides of the pirate and sticking like plaster, and magnetized plates in the ship herself adhering to the other.
Jerry turned to the annunciator. 'Wylie, cut through take over the board, Sven. I'm going down for the fun.'
'Yes, Captain,' said the big man.
Again in Wylie's skilled hands the burning paste oozed from his tool and ate through the metal of the pirate's hull as the crew bolted on their space helmets. Guns clicked in readiness; the oval of weakened metal was closed. The salvagers stood back as Jerry kicked down the section.
Gun ready, he and his men stepped through. They were in an empty storage room, it seemed—one that would never again be crammed with loot.
Through his head-set Jerry ordered, 'All out of the scow. Come through and bring sealing material.' The rest of the crew filed through the ragged opening, stepping cautiously. 'Seal that,' said Jerry. 'Either we fly the pirates' ship to Marsport or we don't fly at all.'
The breech was sealed, and the crew stripped off their spacesuits.
Grimly, weapons poised, they moved in a solid line for the bulkhead that sealed them off from the rest of the ship. They heard running feet through the wall. There would be a corridor on the other side. Jerry flung open the bulkhead and stepped through, guns blazing. Before him was a mass of men, their faces grey, horribly seamed things. Three fell under his fire; others struggled vainly to raise a semi-portable gun against him and the men who came trooping through, their weapons hammering madly in their hands.
Tactics were discarded, and the two groups sprang together, locking in combat. Muffled groans and the thud of fists were heard; gunbutts rose and fell on skulls and faces. Finally the salvagers stood above their foes, bloody and victorious.
'Neat work,' said Jerry, wiping blood from his face. 'Now let's get up this cannon of theirs. That wasn't a quarter of their crew.' Wylie spread the tripod of the gun and locked its barrel into place. 'I think,' he said,
'it's in working order. Shall I try a squirt?'
Jerry nodded and the gun cut loose, hammering shells down the corridor, battering through the steel door.
'Enough,' he said. 'The plan from now on is to stay in a lump and keep moving systematically. If we begin at one end and work towards the other we may get there. Otherwise' He left the words unsaid. 'Wylie, go ahead of us, carrying the barrel. Collins, carry the stand.'
6 Return From Battle
Slowly they advanced through the shattered door. They were in an engine room. 'Wait,' said Jerry. He turned to the complicated maze of pipelines and tore one loose; he twisted valves and shut-offs. The trembling drone of the exhaust died slowly. The pirate ship was free in space.
'We go on from here,' he said. 'Give me the gun-barrel.' Wylie surrendered it and his captain fired a short burst at the lock of the door. It sprung open and silently the men stepped through. It led to an ambush; a score of the grey-faced horrors sprang to the attack as his gun cut loose with violent, stuttering squirts of destruction. Men fell on both sides, and Jerry dropped the clumsy weapon to use his fists and pistol-butt.
He was grappling with a huge man, smashing blows into his middle, twisted over his back. He struggled vainly as he felt his tendons about to give, then—a club rose and fell on the head of his foe, and he slid to the floor saved by Sven. 'Thanks,' he said hastily, scrambling to his feet and sailing into another pirate. A kick to the groin disposed of the man; this was small season for the niceties of combat. He turned as an arm snaked about his neck, and jerked out his pistol, pressing it into the belly of the strangler. He pulled the trigger, his jaw set, and the pressure relaxed suddenly.
From knot of men to struggling knot he swung, firing till his gun was empty, and not daring to stop for a reload. In a few short minutes all was silent save for the panting of the bloody victors—Jerry's men. Two had fallen forever. Gently Jerry straightened their twisted bodies and turned his back on them.
Gruffly he said, 'I believe that we are in a position to make an attack on their main forces, which would be concentrated in the control room.
Follow me.'
And grimly, without a backward glance at the carnage behind them, they followed stealthily down a corridor to pause before a door triply sealed against them. Jerry pounded on it with a pistol. 'This is the fourth call to surrender,' he shouted through the steel.
There was a mocking laugh. 'Come and get us, garbage man,' answered a voice dry as dust. 'We're ready for you.'
Jerry's face hardened. 'Give me the torch,' he said. They passed the tube to him, and primed it.
He braced himself and touched it to the door, opening the torch to its widest capacity. The arc sprung out; he swung it in a great oval over the steel. The door glowed a fiery white; then the slab of metal fell inward with a clang. Through the opening they saw a score of men, guns poised. There was a pause, then their own semi- portable cut loose and tore through a half dozen of the pirates before Dehring, who was feeding ammunition, fell twisting to the floor.
Guns blazing, then the battle-mad crew of the scow leaped to the attack. Men paired off and swung fists and boots; only Jerry stood aside—Jerry and one other. His face a grey ruin, one of the pirates stood aside and watched, taking no hand and seeking none in the destruction. Jerry walked up to him. Again the strange, knightly drama of conflict in space was to be enacted.
'You, sir,' said Jerry, 'are the captain?'
The dry, bleak voice that he knew answered from the head without features. 'Captain Cole, at your disposal, Captain Leigh. Shall we withdraw?' No insults now—the archaic code of the space-pirates demanded this rigidly formal procedure on the meeting of the two enemy captains in battle. Jerry nodded, and the pirate chief led the way into a luxurious room.
Alice sat up. 'Jerry!' she cried. 'Has he taken your ship?' He smiled.
'No—just the opposite. Our men are fighting it out in the control room; Captain Cole has been so kind as to offer me individual combat.'
The pirate chuckled richly, 'Pray speak no more of it. I thought you would be pleased to see your Alice again— she is an extraordinarily high-principled young lady. She has refused to join my little band. Well; perhaps she was right—we shall soon see.
'I believe the choice of weapon is mine?'
'Certainly, Captain,' answered Jerry according to formula. 'And they will be—?'
'Boarding pikes,' said the pirate succinctly. 'There is a pair here, if you will excuse me.' He opened a locker in a corner of the room and withdrew two of the vicious five-foot pole-arms from it. Jerry accepted his weapon with a murmur of thanks and examined it briefly. He struck its shaft over his knee and smiled at its satisfactory weight. 'Shall we fight free or formal?' he asked Cole.
'Formal, if Miss Adams will be good enough to referee.' The girl nodded, her face white. 'The line of combat is not to be departed from,'
she began in the traditional phrasing, 'and will extend along the center of the room from the door to the bed.
'The first figure will be low-crossed; challenger, Captain Leigh, attacking. The defender, Captain Cole, will attempt to disarm the challenger within three disengagements.' She poised her handkerchief.
'At the drop of the scarf,' she said, 'the challenger will attack.'
It fell to the floor, and Jerry hooked a tine of his weapon into the pirate's guard and swung upward, then darted at the chest of his enemy. There was a clash of steel, and—his hands were stinging and empty. He had been disarmed. Cole stood smiling, his pike held easily, waiting for the next figure, as Jerry's mind raced furiously back to the days of his school training. He remembered another such disarming at the hands of an old, quick instructor. He
