Battlefield Earth

Chapter 28

At that exact moment Zzt in the underground hangars was almost out of his wits.

Ever since that wild recoil had occurred at the end of the semiannual, things had been in chaos.

The rumor had been flying about that it was humans out there. Men! Zzt knew better. Those silly slugs could do nothing. It was undoubtedly Tolneps, landing in here from their system. Zzt, although his thinking was interrupted every few seconds by curses at Terl, had it all worked out. The Tolneps had buggered up the teleportation bands to paralyze counterattack and were in here after the still not inconsiderable mineral content of this planet. There had been trouble with the Tolneps before and the last war with them was inconclusive. They were short, about half the size of a Psychlo, and they could breathe almost anything. And were immune to Psychlo gas barrages, worse luck. Therefore he was rigging a Mark 32 low-flying ground strafer, the most heavily gunned plane in the hundreds of planes in these hangars.

humansMen!And damn and blast that Terl! He was supposed to be in charge of defense! And where were the standby, alert battleplanes? Out in the weather. And where were the tanks? Snug and rusting in the underground tank park! And where were the reserves at other minesites? Pulled in here!

HeDamn Terl! There was no fuel cartridge or ammunition supply inside the compound. Zzt was illogical in blaming Terl for this, since it was against company rules to store them inside a compound. They were nearly a half-mile from here, and two parties of Psychlos that had tried to get to the dump had been slaughtered. And that was another thing that proved it was Tolneps. The Psychlos who had been hit simply exploded into a pale green flash. Only Tolneps could invent weapons like that!

So he had to scavenge in the old planes and ground cars for half-used cartridges and ammunition charges. Oh, there was quite a bit to be found, but it couldn’t be depended on.

He had come to physical blows with the two Chamco brothers, blast them. They were readying up a heavy armored tank. Two tanks that had gotten out that violent afternoon had been blown to cinders. So the Chamcos were rigging one of the old brutes of the Basher class: “Bash Our Way to Glory.” Nothing could penetrate its hide and its guns wrecked things for miles. The Chamcos were salvaging fuel and ammunition cartridges for it, and they had the nerve, the twisted metal nerve, to maintain that the attackers were Hockners from Duraleb, a system Psychlo had completely whipped two hundred years ago.

The battle had been over who got the cartridges, and that pompous midget, Ker, had come down and given them both half. Another Terl mess!

The cartridges didn’t fit the Mark 32. Zzt had spent valuable time machining a false case around them to get them into the tubes. Damn Terl!

He had told his men to MOVE THAT DAMNED DRONE! two hours ago. Damn Terl!

MOVE THAT DAMNED DRONE!Now here he was. He had found a copilot: one of the executives in the draft that had just arrived, rated combat on a Mark 32, named Nup; a dimwit—but that’s what you got on an out-of-the-way planet like this—who thought it was a typical Bolbod attack, based on a rumor he had heard in the kerbango shops lately in the Imperial City that a conquest of the Bolbods was intended.

Zzt had collected a combat breathe-mask, gotten a shoulder bag of extra vials, gotten his sidearms, put spare rations in his pocket, and last but not least, put his favorite wrench into the side of his boot, a wrench that sometimes came in handy in any kind of fight or situation.

The Mark 32 motors turned over easily. It purred. In no time at all he would be out there and that would be the very positive end of this attack! Damn Terl!

Zzt let off the skid grips and taxied the Mark 32, “Hit ’Em Low, Kill ’Em,” toward the firing door. Mechanics leaped to get out of his way. The place was in a turmoil of Psychlos trying to get planes ready with nothing. And that damned drone was still standing there.

Ordinarily you could fire three planes at once through that door. It was high enough even to add a fourth. But that ancient relic of a gas drone was so wide and so tall it was blocking the whole door. Just what he’d told Terl. Damn Terl! There was no way he could get the Mark 32 past it.

noZzt leaned out the door and screamed for the shift foreman. He came rushing up. Zzt almost bit him. “Move that damned drone! Two hours ago I—”

“It won’t dolly,” panted the foreman. He pointed. Four dolly trucks had been trying to push it away. “It won’t move!”

Zzt gave his equipment bag a hoist onto his shoulder and sprang down. “You imbecile crunch! The only inside control that thing has is its mag-grapnels. Why haven’t you let it off? Those big skis are magnetically locked to this platform! Why don’t you learn—”

“It’s a very old drone,” chattered the foreman, his wits starting to crumble under Zzt’s glare.

Zzt rushed to the door of the drone. It was a huge door, big enough to load a dozen gas canisters at a time. Somebody had put a rolling ladder there and Zzt ran up it, his equipment clattering, and pried at the door. It was locked! An armored door itself the size of a plane.

“Where’s the key?” screamed Zzt.

“Terl had it!” the foreman shouted up at him. “We’ve looked everywhere for Terl. We can’t find him!”

Damn Terl! “Have you searched his rooms?” Zzt yelled down from the rolling ladder.

“Yes, yes, yes!” cried the foreman. “We—”

At that moment a higher-pitched voice bit into the row of the hangar. “Yoohoo!” It was Chirk. Zzt stared in daggers of hostility. The cheap twit!

But she was holding a single huge key. “I found this in his desk,” she caroled.

“Where are the other keys to this thing?” shouted Zzt. “The preset box keys.”

“That’s the only one there was in the desk,” lilted Chirk.

It gave Zzt an instant’s pause. He didn’t want this damned old relic firing itself off in the hangar with no way to get out. But he had to move it. This was the door key they were passing up to him.

moveHe glared at the key. Three toggles. Pitted. The shaft almost in two. Terl could at least have made a new key! But oh, no, it was paws off.

He shoved the key, all twenty pounds of it, at the lock hole. He twisted it with a curse. Damn Terl!

The rusty, magnetic clenchers gave. The key fell apart.

Zzt flung it to the platform below, narrowly missing Chirk. At least the door was open.

He struggled to swing it back. Even the hinges were decayed and stiff. It opened to reveal the enormous interior.

Zzt got a torch. There were no lights in this thing. It was never meant to have a pilot in it. It was just tons and tons and tons of gas canisters, engines and armor.

He thought belatedly he might have robbed some fuel from it. Too late now.

He lumbered forward to the control compartment. He had better throw them off. But no! They were armor-locked solid. They couldn’t be unset without a key. And this metal wouldn’t surrender to anything. It was armored! Damn Terl!

He darted his light around. There was the magnetic grip release, the only interior control, put there so hangar and firing people could lock and unlock it when moving it about with tractors.

ThereZzt reached for the release brake.

Before he could touch it, it moved!

He froze, looking at it in horror. Yes, there was a click in the preset box. He dove for the door.

The forward jerk of the motors threw him off his feet. He scrambled for the exit.

Too late!

The hangar door was fleeing by. It was already yards down to the ground. He didn’t dare jump.

The drone took off, its rusty side door flapping in the wind.

Zzt let out a shuddering groan. Damn Terl!

Well, at least they could get the battleplanes out and end the Tolnep attack.

And all this on half-pay and no bonuses.

Probably that was Terl’s doing, too.