Now those on guard in the still open hatch took up the fire, before crumpling under stunners used by the brach, while the second guard, still firing, fell at last, rolling in turn down the ramp, his blaster yet emitting a beam, whirling its deadly lance right and left as it bumped by him and then fell to the ground.
“This is it!” The Patrolmen, followed by the others from the port, went into action, speeding for the ship. For takeoff, the ramp must be in, the hatch closed. Now one of the brachs darted out of hiding to reach for the blaster still discharging its fire power along the ground. But he or she did not reach it. There was a lance of fire from the hatch, poorly aimed, for the alien was not hit, merely went to ground again.
However, the force of Trewsworld law closed in about the spacer, centering their aim on the open hatches, picking off anything trying to close that.
Dane stumbled along in the wake of the captain and Shannon. He found it hard going, and they left him well behind. But neither of the Free Traders were heading for the battle of the hatches. Instead, their goal was the third carrier, the one with the two cages on it. Rip reached it first, scrambled into the driver’s seat, and was warming her for a start when the captain hurled himself in on the other side, half standing, half crouching, prepared to defend their capture. And defend it he did as several of the rejected, who had survived the burn-off, tried to rush the Terrans.
Jellico got two of them. Dane picked off the last, numbing his leg with a stunner. Rip set the carrier on high and was bringing it around, aiming it. Now Dane understood what he was trying to do. The weight of the carrier, if it was rammed up on the end of the ramp, would anchor the ship to the ground. There would be no takeoff because the safety factors of the spacer would not permit it.
There was still firing by the spacer, and Jellico was alert, watching for any sign of life at the hatch, any chance of Rip’s being picked up out of the driver’s seat. The assistant astrogator had the blunt nose of their vehicle pointed straight on target now.
Dane saw Rip’s arm raise and fall, a stunner held by the barrel so its butt could be used as a hammer. He was breaking the controls. And with those gone, no one could turn the heavy machine from its course.
Rip leaped out one side, Jellico the other, and the crawler clanked steadily on. There was a grating, a crushing sound loud even through the shouts, the crackle of blaster fire. The carrier’s nose arose over the edge of the ramp, and the machine hung there, its treads cutting more and more deeply into the ground as it strove to push ahead and could not. But the anchor the Free Traders had devised would hold, though the ultimate taking of those in the ship might prove to be delayed. If help came from the port, they might be able to use gas bombs.
With the ship so anchored, part of the besieging party rounded up what was left of the men who had been scattered in the blaster attack. But Dane trailed Jellico and Finnerstan on an inspection of the base. Much of what had been there had been purposefully destroyed. One of the earth-embedded structures was caved in by an implosion bomb, and the others all gave the appearance of hasty plundering. A well-equipped com station had been left without destruction, and one of the port policemen slid into the seat there, sought the channel, and beamed a call for assistance.
‘Trouble is,” commented Finnerstan, “if they are really fanatical about secrecy, they will destroy what they have in the ship.” He looked at the spacer as if he would have cheerfully broken it open as one cracks an eggshell to get at the yolk. “By the time we get help, they will have disposed of everything we want.”
“Parley?” suggested Jellico.
“Only give them more time to get rid of everything suspicious. If this was a local operation, a true jack raid, we might make a deal. But this is too big. They’ll have information on board that must have threads out to perhaps half a dozen other worlds, perhaps some we don’t suspect at all. What they carry is more important than the prisoners.”
“What,” Dane asked, “about those?” He pointed through the door of the com room to the men who had been rounded up. “They won’t have any reason to support the ship people, and perhaps they can give you some idea of what is on board and whether they would readily destroy it.”
Dane’s suggestion might already have been in the Patrol officer’s mind, for Finnerstan was already moving to such an interrogation. Most of the sullen men were uncooperative, but the fifth he questioned gave them the lead they needed. Though the others captured were mainly guards and workmen below the level of third-grade tech, expendable, the fifth man brought in was a reeling, half-conscious captive who had been rescued a few inches from having his life crushed out of him by the crawler on the ramp, the last one boarding who had been brought down by the brach’s assault.
He was certainly of higher rank than the others. In fact, as the guards brought him past those other prisoners, two of them lunged for him, cursing. He was cowering, obviously badly shaken, when he stood before Finnerstan.
The combination of the stun attack, his close brush with death under the crawler, and the anger of his followers broke him. The Patrol officer learned what he wanted. Under his direction they dragged out of
the wreckage in the base a tube by which they lobbed gas bombs into the opened hatches. Those broke on contact, spreading the sleep-compelling atmosphere. Masked guards from the flitter went on board to gather up prisoners, leave them wrapped by tanglers, then proceeded to put in safety all that had been about to be transported off-world.
It was three days later in Trewsport that the crew of the Queen were finally united for the first time since the LB had taken off. The settlers’ government had been badly shaken. There was an interim Patrol command in control, and specialists from off-world had been summoned to examine the Trosti labs and the material taken from the ship.
Dane sat nursing a mug of coffee. His headache had gone at long last, leaving him feeling curiously light. He had slept away some twenty planet hours and was now able to summon alert attention to what Captain Jellico said.
“—so as soon as they clean her out, she’s to be put up to auction as contraband taken in the midst of an unlawful act. There’s no one here planetside who wants a spacer or would know what to do with her if they had her. We will probably be the only bidders, as the Patrol is not going to go to the trouble of flying her to another world just to sell her. I have it on Finnerstan’s word that if we put in a time bid, she’s ours!”
“We have a ship—a good ship!” Stotz protested with the firmness of one not to be influenced.
“We have a good ship tied up by a mail contract,” Jellico returned. “We have the mail fees, yes, but they are small. And if we can build up a fund as a starter when the contract is finished—”
It was a big step, expanding from the Solar Queen to a two-ship holding. Very few Free Traders had ever done it.
“We do not have to keep her long,” the captain continued. “I do not even say deep space with her. Use her in this system only. Trewsworld is an Ag planet. But if she can grow more crops—short-term crops—than just the lathsmers, she would be sooner ready for regular stellar trade. Now look here.” He flashed a picture from a reader onto the wall. “This is the Trewsworld system. Those captured charts show that while there is some of that ore—they’re calling it esperite—on this planet, there is much more on Riginni, the next planet out. And that can be dome-mined but can’t be terraformed. So, miners have to eat, and they have to ship back ore to here for galactic transshipments. There’s a two-way trade for you—steady, growing as the dome mines grow. And considering that we had a good hand in breaking up this Trosti mess, we can get the franchise. Profit all along.”