Battlefield Earth

Chapter 25

Now would come the usual minor recoil that followed a semiannual firing.

Jonnie counted the seconds. He was panting heavily from his sprint. Windsplitter beside him was blowing, trembling.

Suddenly the ground shook. The air was rent with a splintering crash. A flash lit the sky.

Recoil? Sounded more like the place had blown up!

Jonnie scrambled to the top of the cliff and peered over the edge.

Too much recoil!

By fuse, the nuclear weapons should not have gone off on Psychlo for another ten seconds.

The operations dome was still in the air, flames geysering from it.

The network of wires around the platform was melting.

Machines in the area were sent skidding. Psychlo operators were tumbled to the earth.

Wild, aura-like, sheet lightning bloomed over the transshipment scene!

The compound domes were rocked but seemed intact.

The concussion was racketing across the plains.

It was too soon for the bombs to go off on Psychlo. What had happened? Had they missed their target and landed their lethal cargo on some nearer space? Did this mean Psychlo armament from the home planet could still appear in the sky and crush them?

But right now the question was: had this messed up their assault plans?

He looked anxiously toward the row of battleplanes. The instant after recoil was their cue.

He looked toward the nearby ravines. Scot teams in camouflage radiation dress were due to sprint out of cover and take position with their weapons.

That recoil might also be radioactive, and here he was with no radiation battle suit.

Yay! There went the battleplanes! Sixteen of them had been manned, each with a pilot and copilot. They had hidden in the planes all night. Keys to them had been placed on each seat.

Up soared the battleplanes! A blasting, combined roar of heavy motors. Thirty-two Scot pilots and copilots.

Fifteen planes peeled off and darted at hypersonic toward their destinations. One plane for each distant minesite on the planet. The mission was to batter and destroy them and prevent a counterattack here. One plane to act as air cover for this central minesite. Radio silence was the watchword. No warning!

Jonnie looked at the remaining planes on the ground to see whether they had been battered. He noted they were a bit turned. They seemed all right.…

Wait! Something was wrong. There should be four planes left there. They only had thirty-two pilots and copilots. But there were three planes left, not four!

He raised himself above the cliff edge again and swept the scene.

And there it was. Sickening.

The whole sidewall of the morgue had been battered out, and the coffin with which it had been done lay in the rubble!

Terl had somehow come to life and hammered his way out of the morgue.

Jonnie looked up.

Where there should have been one battleplane up there for this minesite, there were two!

Jonnie grabbed for Windsplitter. Something was wrong. The horse had gone lame in its plunge down the cliff. It was three hundred yards to those planes.

With a glare at the sky, Jonnie was running down the hill, putting all his strength into it.

A blastrifle spat at him from the compound. He raced on through a cloud of dirt.

Where were the assault teams? Had they been knocked flat?

Racing, Jonnie headed for the nearest battleplane, shots streaking the air about him. More blastrifles were firing from the compound.

He got to the plane door and got it half open. A blastrifle shot slammed it shut. He dove under the plane and went in the other door.

The key. The key! Where had Angus put this plane’s key? He was scrambling through the edges of the seats. The recoil jolt had jarred the key off the seat. A blastrifle splattered a shot onto the windscreen. There was the key! On the floor!

The instant before he touched the starters, he heard the chunk of a bazooka go. Then the flailing chatter of assault rifles.

The motors barked and he raced his hands over the console. The plane flashed upward to two thousand feet.

He caught a glimpse of the attack groups moving in. Two bazooka teams. Four assault rifle parties. They had been protected in the ravines in which they had crouched all night, covered with antiheat shields.

Jonnie flipped on the viewscreens. Where was Terl?