But when they achieved space flight, they had an answer. They would sit safely out of reach on the moon and destroy the cities of earth one after another by guided missiles launched from the moon, until the completely helpless nations of earth surrendered and pleaded for mercy.
The announcement of the final plan brought another flash of arrogance back into their prisoner. "And you cannot stop it," he concluded. "You may kill me, but you cannot stop it! Heil dem Führer!"
"Mind if I spit in his eye, Doc?" Morrie said conversationally.
"Don't waste it," Cargraves counseled. "Let's see if we can think ourselves out of this mess. Any suggestions?" He hauled the prisoner out of the chair and made him lie face down on the deck. Then he sat down on him. "Go right ahead," he urged. "I don't think he understands two words of English. How about it, Ross?"
"Well," Ross answered, "it's more than just saving our necks now. We've got to stop them. But the notion of tackling fifty men with two rifles and two pistols sounds like a job for Tarzan or Superman. Frankly, I don't know how to start."
"Maybe we can start by scouting them out. Thirteen miles isn't much. Not on the moon."
"Look," said Art, "in a day or two I might have a transmitter rigged that would raise earth. What we need is reinforcements."
"How are they going to get here?" Ross wanted to know. "We had the only space ship—except for the Nazis."
"Yes, but listen—Doc's plans are still available. You left full notes with Ross's father—didn't you, Doc? They can get busy and rebuild some more and come up here and blast those skunks out."
"That might be best," Cargraves answered. "We can't afford to miss, that's sure. They could raid the earth base of the Nazis first thing and then probably bust this up in a few weeks, knowing that our ship did work and having our plans."
Morrie shook his head. "It's all wrong. We've got to get at them right now. No delay at all, just the way they smashed us. Suppose it takes the UN six weeks to get there. Six weeks might be too long. Three weeks might be too long. A week might be too long. An atom war could be all over in a day."
"Well, let's ask our pal if he knows when they expect to strike, then," Ross offered.
Morrie shook his head and stopped Art from doing so. "Useless. We'll never get a chance to build a transmitter. They'll be swarming over this crater like reporters around a murder trial. Look—they'll be here any minute. Don't you think they'll miss this rocket?"
"Oh, my gosh!" It was Art. Ross added, "What time is it, Doc?"
To their complete amazement it was only forty minutes from the time the Galileo had been bombed. It had seemed like a full day.
It cheered them up a little but not much. The prisoner had admitted that the rocket they were in was the only utility, short-jump job. And the Nazi space ship- the Wotan, he termed it -would hardly be used for search. Perhaps they had a few relatively free hours.
"But I still don't see it," Cargraves admitted. "Two guns and two pistols—four of us. The odds are too long—and we can't afford to lose. I know you sports aren't afraid to die, but we've got to win."
"Why," inquired Ross, "does it have to be rifles?"
"What else?"
"This crate bombed us. I'll bet it carries more than one bomb."
Cargraves looked startled, then turning to the prisoner, spoke rapidly in German. The prisoner gave a short reply. Cargraves nodded and said, "Morrie, do you think you could fly this clunker?"
"I could sure make a stab at it."
"Okay. You are it. We'll make Joe Masterrace here take it off, with a gun in his ribs, and you'll have to feel her out. You won't get but one chance and no practice. Now let's take a look at the bomb controls."
The bomb controls were simple. There was no bombsight, as such. The pilot drove the ship on a straight diving course and kicked it out just before his blast upwards. There was a gadget to expel the bomb free of the ship; it continued on the ship's previous trajectory. Having doped it out, they checked with the Nazi pilot who gave them the same answers they had read in the mechanism.
There were two pilot seats and two passenger seats, directly behind the pilot seats. Morrie took one pilot seat; the Nazi the other. Ross sat behind Morrie, while Cargraves sat with Art in his lap, one belt around both. This squeezed Art up close to the back of the Nazi's chair, which was good, for Art reached around and held a gun in the Nazi's side.
"All set, Morrie?"
"All set. I make one pass to get my bearings and locate the mouth of their hideaway. Then I come back and give ‘em the works."
"Right. Try not to hit their rocket ship, if you can. it would be nice to go home. Blast off! Achtung! Aufstieg!"
The avengers raised ground.
"How is it going?" Cargraves shouted a few moments later. "Okay!" Morrie answered, raising his voice to cut through the roar. "I could fly her down a chimney. There's the hill ahead, I think—there!"
The silvery shape of the Wotan near the hill they were shooting towards put a stop to any doubts. It appeared to be a natural upthrust of rock, quite different from the craters, and lay by itself a few miles out in one of the ‘seas'.
They were past it and Morrie was turning, blasting heavily to kill his momentum, and pressing them hard into their seats. Art fought to steady the revolver without firing it.
Morrie was headed back on his bombing run, coming in high for his dive. Cargraves wondered if Morrie had actually seen the air lock of the underground base; he himself had had no glimpse of it.
There was no time left to wonder. Morrie was diving; they were crushed against the pads as he fought a moment later to recover from the dive, kicking her up and blasting. They hung for a second and Cargraves thought that Morrie had played it too fine in his anxiety to get in a perfect shot; he braced himself for the crash.
Then they were up. When he had altitude, Morric kicked her over again, letting his jet die. They dropped, view port down, with the ground staring at them.
They could see the splash of dust and sand still rising. Suddenly there was a whoosh from the middle of it, a mighty blast of air, bits of debris, and more sand. It cleared at once in the vacuum of that plain, and they saw the open wound, a black hole leading downward.
He had blown out the air lock with a bull's-eye.
Morrie put her down to Cargraves' plan, behind the Wotan and well away from the hole. "Okay, Doc!"
"Good. Now let's run over the plan—I don't want any slipup. Ross comes with me. You and Art stay with the jeep. We will look over the Wotan first, then scout out the base. If we are gone longer than thirty minutes, you must assume that we are dead or captured. No matter what happens, under no circumstances whatever are you to leave this rocket. If any one comes toward you, blast off. Don't even let us come near you unless we are by ourselves. Blast off. You've got one more bomb—you know what to do with it."
Morrie nodded. "Bomb the Wotan. I hate to do that." He stared wistfully at the big ship, their one chain to the earth.
"But you've got to. You and Art have got to run for it, then, and get back to the Dog House and hole up. It'll be your business, Art, to manage somehow or other to throw together a set that can get a message back to earth. That's your only business, both of you. Under no circumstances are you to come back here looking for Ross and me. If you stay holed up, they may not find you for weeks—and that will give you your chance, the earth's chance. Agreed?"
Morrie hesitated. "Suppose we get a message through to earth. How about it then?"
Cargraves thought for a moment, then replied, "We can't stand here jawing—there's work to be done. If you get a message through with a reply that makes quite clear that they believe you and are getting busy, then you are on your own. But I advise you not to take any long chances. If we aren't back here in thirty minutes, you probably can't help us." He paused for a moment and decided to add one more thing—the boy's personal loyalty had made him doubtful about one point. "You know, don't you, that when it comes to dropping that bomb, if you do, you must drop it where it has to go, even if Ross and I are standing on your target?"