[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Comet January 41.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The Venusians had one admirable characteristic. When they set out todo a thing, nothing could stop them. Captain Paul Bonnet had saidsomething to this effect to Major Rogers and it made the old man soangry that he almost court-martialed the youth.
"We're going to stop them!" the major roared.
Captain Bonnet glanced up into the sky, already dark with the balloonedbodies of the Venusian bipeds. The creatures looked like huge sausages,except that there was something deadly about them.
On the approaches to Outpost 53, sweating men labored on the caissonsof twelve batteries of Amorg twenty-fives, pouring atomic destructioninto a solidly packed mass of Venusians advancing through the wireentanglements.
Captain Bonnet nodded to the major. "You're right, sir!" He turned tothe members of his crew who were manning an anti-rocket gun. "Did youhear that? Knock 'em out of the sky!"
The gun coughed Amorg vapor into the sky. A gaping hole appeareddirectly overhead where the bodies of at least a hundred Venusians weredisintegrated. Before the gun could be recharged the hole disappeared,filled by more bulging Venusians.
Lieutenant Bill Riley wiped the sweat from his face with his soiledcoat sleeve.
"It's like bailing a boat with a sieve!" he said.
Major Rogers looked as though he were going to have apoplexy.
"We'll get 'em," Captain Bonnet announced, winking at his lieutenant.
Lieutenant Riley grinned. There was a great deal in common betweenthe captain and the lieutenant, besides the fact that they were bothofficers of the same space ship—The Piece of Sky—which now layruined on the landing field, its plates dissolved by acid poured fromthe sky by the Venusians.
Both officers were young and husky. Both had seen action on the Martiancanals and this wasn't the first meeting they had had with Venusians.
"If they had any sense they'd know they were licked," the captainadded, casting his steely blue eyes at the entanglements. The place wasa grisly sight, strewn with parts of thousands of long-bodied Venusians.
But the captain knew and the lieutenant knew—perhaps even the majorknew—that Outpost 53 was worth any sacrifice the Venusians werewilling to make. If this post were captured, the Venusians couldcontrol their planet again. There were any number of reasons why itwas best that the planet be governed by terrestrials, and not all ofthem were commercial. The Venusians were murderous, evil, destructivecreatures who hated every other living thing in the universe.
Captain Bonnet checked his casualties. Of his crew of sixty, three weredead and twelve paralyzed by the poisoned darts the Venusians used. Theother forty-five were half dead from exhaustion. Three days of fightingwas about all any man could stand.
Captain Bonnet's men had been in a more or less exposed position duringthe first part of the battle and their casualties had been heavy whilethey tried to prevent The Piece of Sky's destruction. But probablyten percent of the fifteen hundred men who manned Outpost 53 were outof the action now, the majority of them suffering temporary paralysisfrom dart poison. The captain realized that the attack would continueuntil the Venusians captured the post.
The radio power house had been destroyed first of all. Then the spaceship had been wrecked. The outpost was cut off from communication withthe earth. Reinforcements who could attack the Venusians from above anddisperse them wou