The whole nightmare fight was suddenly shadowed by a big black mass dropping down on them from the flaming nebula sky!
"It's a ship!" screamed one of the Cloud-men; "One of our ships!"
A phantom-cruiser with the black, blotlike insignia of the Cloud on its bows thundered down upon them with krypton searchlights flaring to light the whole scene.
The rubbery horde retreated in sudden panic. As the cruiser crushed to a landing in the jungle close by, Cloud-soldiers with atom-guns sprang from it.
Gordon, raising Lianna's half-senseless form from the ground, found Durk Undis covering him with an atom-pistol. The newcomers were hastily approaching.
"Holl Vonn!" Durk Undis greeted the stocky, crop-haired Cloud-captain who was foremost. "You got here just in time!"
"So it seems!" exclaimed Holl Vonn, staring horrifiedly at the viscous living jelly still creeping away from the scene of battle. "What in God's name were those things that were attacking you?"
"They're creatures of this crazy planet," Durk Undis panted. "I think they were human once-human colonists who mutated under radioactive influence. They've got a strange new reproduction-cycle, being born from a pool of life and going back to it when hurt to be born again."
He continued swiftly. "That can be told later. The thing now is to get away from here at once. There must already be Empire squadrons searching the whole area west of the nebula."
Holl Vonn nodded quickly. "Shorr Kan said to bring Zarth Arn and Lianna back to the Cloud at once. We'd better run eastward through the nebula and then beat back southward along the Rim."
Gordon had revived Lianna. She was looking wonderingly at the towering ship and the armed Cloud-men.
"Zarth, what happened? Does this mean-"
"It means that we're going back to the Cloud, to Shorr Kan," he said hoarsely.
Durk Undis motioned curtly to the new Cloud-ship. "Into the Merle, both of you."
Holl Vonn suddenly stiffened. "Listen-by heaven!"
His square face was suddenly livid as he pointed wildly upward.
Four massive shapes were rushing down on them from the nebula-sky! Not phantoms these, but big cruisers with heavy batteries of atom-guns along their sides with the flaring comet-emblem of the Mid-Galactic Empire on their bows.
"An Empire squadron!" yelled Holl Vonn wildly. "We're trapped here! They've already spotted us!"
Gordon felt sudden wild hope. His desperate expedient had succeeded, had brought one of the searching Empire squadrons to this world!
20: Doom Off the Pleiades
Durk Undis uttered a raging exclamation as the Empire cruisers swooped from the sky.
"To the ship! We'll cut our way back through them to space!"
"We've not a chance!" cried Holl Vonn, his face deathly as he started to run toward his ship. "They've caught us flat!"
Durk Undis froze for a second, then whipped out his atom-pistol again. He whirled around toward Gordon and Lianna.
The young fanatic's eyes were flaming. "Then we'll finish Zarth Arn and Lianna right here! Shorr Kan's orders-no matter what happens to us, these two must not get back to Throon!"
Gordon lunged at him as he spoke! In the few seconds since the Empire cruisers had appeared, Gordon had realized that in this desperate emergency the Cloud-man would kill himself and Lianna rather than let them escape.
He had bunched himself an instant before Durk Undis swung around with the weapon. He hit the Cloud-man like a human projectile. Durk Undis was hurled violently backward.
Holl Vonn was running into his ship, shouting orders. As Durk Undis sprawled, Gordon seized Lianna's hand and darted with her into the concealment of the nebula-lit jungle.
"If we can keep out of it for a few moments, we're saved!" he told her. "Those Empire ships will come down here to search."
"Holl Vonn is charging them!" cried Lianna, pointing upward.
Thunderous roar of generators screaming with power broke upon the air as the long, slim mass of Holl Venn's phantom, the Merle, hurtled up into the glowing sky.
Gordon saw then that whatever else the men of the Cloud might be, they were not cowards. Knowing himself trapped, knowing instant destruction was the penalty for being caught here in Empire space after the destruction of an Empire ship, Holl Vonn came out fighting!
Atom-guns of the Merle volleyed exploding shells at the swooping Empire ships. The nebula sky seemed to burst into blinding brilliance with the explosions.
It was magnificent but hopeless, that charge of one phantom against four heavy cruisers. The great batteries of the cruisers seemed literally to smother the Merle in atom-shells.
Blossoming flowers of atomic fire unfolded and momentarily concealed the Cloud ship. Then it was revealed as a fusing, fiery wreck that hurtled headlong across the sky to crash in the distant jungle.
"Zarth, look out!" screamed Lianna at that instant, and pushed Gordon aside.
An atomic pellet flicked close past his face and exploded in a nearby thicket!
Durk Undis, his face deadly, was close by and was raising his weapon to fire again. Lianna had desperately grasped his arm.
Gordon realized then the tenacity of the young Cloud-captain, who had remained and followed to kill Lianna and himself.
"By Heaven, I'll finish it now!" Durk Undis was exclaiming, hurling Lianna violently away from him with a sweep of his arm.
Gordon, charging, reached him at that moment. The Cloud-man uttered a sound of sudden agony as Gordon fiercely twisted his arm. The atom-pistol dropped from his fingers. Eyes blazing, he kneed Gordon in the stomach and smashed hard fists into his face.
Gordon hardly felt the blows, in his overpowering passion. He rocked forward and fell with the Cloud-man as they grappled.
Braced with his back against the trunk of a towering golden tree, Durk Undis got his hands on Gordon's throat and squeezed.
Gordon felt a roaring in his ears, and a sudden blackness swept over him. His groping hands grabbed the Cloud-man's bristling black hair. He hammered Durk Undis' head violently back against the tree.
He was so deep in that roaring blackness that it was only after many minutes that Lianna's voice penetrated his ears.
"Zarth, it's over! He's dead!"
Gordon, gulping air into starved lungs, felt his senses clearing. He found himself still gripping Durk Undis' hair.
The whole back of the Cloud-man's skull was a bloody mess where he had hammered it again and again against the tree-trunk.
He staggered up to his feet, sick, almost retching. Lianna sprang to his side as he swayed.
"Lianna, I didn't see him. If you hadn't cried out and rushed him, he'd have killed me."
A stern new voice rang suddenly from close by. Gordon staggered around to face that direction.
Gray-uniformed Empire soldiers with raised atom-guns were forcing through the soft-lit jungle toward them. One of the Empire cruisers had landed nearby, while the others still hovered overhead.
The man who spoke was a hard-eyed, handsome young Empire captain who stared wonderingly at Gordon's disheveled figure and Lianna.
"You two don't look like Cloud-people! But you were with them-"
He stopped suddenly and took a step forward. His eyes peered at Gordon's bruised, bloody face.
"Prince Zarth Arn!" he cried, stupefied. Then his eyes flamed hatred and passion. "By Heaven, we've caught you! And with Cloud-men! You joined them when you fled from Throon!"
A quiver of passion ran through all the Empire soldiers who had gathered. Gordon saw mortal hatred in their eyes.