"Phillip Francis Nowlan - Buck Rogers 01 - Armageddon 2419" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nowlan Philip Francis)

approaching. We're not discovered yet. I'll take care of them. Stand a bit longer, but be ready."
I think my last words must have been heard by the man who was approaching, for he stopped
suddenly.
I crouched at the far side of the compartment, motionless. I would not draw my sword if there were
only one of them.
Apparently reassured at the absence of any further sound, a man came around a sort of bulkhead-and I
leaped.
I swung my legs up in front of me as I did so, catching him full in the stomach and knocked him cold.
 I ran forward along the keel gangway, searching for the control room. I found it well up in the nose of
the ship. And it was deserted. What could I do to jam the controls of the ship that would not register on
the recording instruments of the other ships? I gazed at the mass of controls. Levers and wheels galore.
In the center of the compartment, on a massively braced universal
joint mounting, was what I took for the repellor generator. A dial on it glowed and a faint hum came from
ithin its shielding metallic case. But I had no time to study it.
Above all else, I was afraid that some automatic apiratus existed in the room, through which I might be
heard on the other ships. The risk of trying to jam the )ntrols was too great. I abandoned the idea and
withrew softly. I would have to take a chance that there was no other member of the crew aboard.
I ran back to the entrance compartment. Wilma still lay where she had slumped down. I heard the
voices of "he Hans approaching. It was time to act. The next few seconds would tell whether the ships
in the air would try or be able to melt us into nothingness.
"Are you boys all ready?" I asked, creeping to a position opposite the dcor and drawing my handgun.
Again there was a chorus of assent.
"Then on the count of three, shoot up those rep rays-all of them-and for God's sake, don't miss." I was
beginning to think in the terms the others used generally-"dis" for disintegrator, "rep" for repellor. And
I counted.
I think my "three" was a bit weak. I know it took all the courage I had to utter it.
For an agonizing instant nothing happened, except that the landing party from the ship strolled into my
range of vision.
Then startled, they turned thefr eyes upward. For an instant they stcod frozen with horror at whatever
they saw.
One hurled his knife at me. It grazed my cheek. Then a couple of them made a break for the doorway.
The rest followed. But I fired pointblank with my hand-gun, pressing the button as fast as I could and
aiming at their feet to make sure my explosive rockets would make contact and do their work.
The detonations of my rockets were deafening. The spot on which the Hans stood flashed into a
blinding glare. Then there was nothing there except their torr and mutilated corpses. They had been
fairly bunched and I got them all.
I ran to the door, expecting any instant to be hurled into infinity by the sweep of a dis ray.
Some eighth of a mile away I saw one of the ships crash to the earth. A dis ray came into my line of
vision, wavered uncertainly for a moment and then began to sweep directly toward the ship in which I
stood. But it never reached it. Suddenly, like a light switched off, it shot to one side, and a moment
later another vast hulk crashed to earth. I looked out, then stepped out on the ground.
The only Han ships in the sky were two of the scouts to the south which were hanging
perpendicularly, and sagging slowly down. The others must have crashed down while I was deafened
by the sound of the explosion of my own rockets.
Somebody hit the other rep ray of one of the two remaming ships and it fell out of sight beyond a
hilltop. The other, farther away, drifted down diagonally, its dis ray playing viciously over the ground
below it.
I shouted with exultation and relief.
"Take back the command, Boss!" I yelled.
His commands, sending out jumpers in pursuit of the descending ship, rang in my ears, but I paid no