<h2><SPAN name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></SPAN>CHAPTER II<br/> The "Ground Ships" Threaten</h2>
<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">One</span> of our Wyoming girls, on
contact guard near Pocono,
blundered into a hunting camp
of the Bad Bloods, one of
the renegade American Gangs,
which occupied the Blue Mountain
section North of Delaware
Water Gap. We had not invited
their cooperation in this campaign,
for they were under some
suspicion of having trafficked
with the Hans in past years, but
they had offered no objection to
our passage through their territory
in our advance on Nu-Yok.</p>
<p>Fortunately our contact guard
had been able to leap into the
upper branches of a tree without
being discovered by the Bad
Bloods, for their discipline was
lax and their guard careless. She
overheard enough of the conversation
of their Bosses around the
camp fire beneath her to indicate
the general nature of the
Han plans.</p>
<p>After several hours she was
able to leap away unobserved
through the topmost branches of
the trees, and after putting several
miles between herself and
their camp, she ultrophoned a
full report to her Contact Boss
back in the Wyoming Valley.
My own Ultrophone Field Boss
picked up the message and
brought the graph record of it
to me at once.</p>
<p>Her report was likewise picked
up by the Bosses of the various
Gang units in our line, and we
had called a council to discuss
our plans by word of mouth.</p>
<p>We were gathered in a sheltered
glade on the eastern slope
of First Mountain on a balmy
night in May. Far to the east,
across the forested slopes of the
lowlands, the flat stretches of
open meadow and the rocky ridge
that once had been Jersey City,
the iridescent glow of Nu-Yok's
protecting film of annihilation
shot upward, gradually fading
into a starry sky.</p>
<p>In the faint glow of our ultronolamps,
I made out the great
figure and rugged features of
Boss Casaman, commander of the
Mifflin unit, and the gray uniform
of Boss Warn, who led the
Sandsnipers of the Barnegat
Beaches, and who had swooped
over from his headquarters on
Sandy Hook. By his side stood
Boss Handan of the Winslows, a
Gang from Central Jersee. In the
group also were the leaders of the
Altoonas, the Camerons, the Lycomings,
Susquannas, Harshbargs,
Hagersduns, Chesters,
Reddings, Delawares, Elmirans,
Kiugas, Hudsons and Connedigas.</p>
<hr />
<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Most</span> of them were clad in
forest-green uniforms that
showed black at night, but each
had some distinctive badge or
item of uniform or equipment
that distinguished his Gang.</p>
<p>Both the Mifflin and Altoona
Bosses, for instance, wore heavy-looking
boots with jointed knees.
They came from sections that
were not only mountainous, but
rocky, where "leaping" involves
many a slip and bruised limb,
unless some protection of this
sort is worn. But these boots
were not as heavy as they looked,
being counter-balanced somewhat
with inertron.</p>
<p>The headgear of the Winslows
was quite different from the
close-fitting helmet of the Wyomings,
being large and bushy-looking,
for in the Winslow territory
there were many stretches
of nearly bare land, with occasional
scrubby pines, and a
Winslow caught in the open, on
the approach of a Han airship,
would twist himself into a motionless
imitation of a scrubby
plant, that passed very successfully
for the real thing, when
viewed from several thousand
feet in the air.</p>
<p>The Susquannas had a unit
that was equipped with inertron
shields, that were of the same
shape as those of the ancient
Romans, but much larger, and
capable of concealing their bearers
from head to foot when they
crouched slightly. These shields,
of course, were colored forest
green, and were irregularly shaded;
they were balanced with inertron,
so that their effective
weight was only a few ounces.
They were curious too, in that
they had handles for both hands,
and two small reservoir rocket-guns
built into them as integral
parts.</p>
<p>In going into action, the Susquannas
crouched slightly, holding
the shields before them with
both hands, looking through a
narrow vision slit, and working
both rocket guns. The shields,
however, were a great handicap
in leaping, and in advancing
through heavy forest growth.</p>
<p>The field unit of the Delawares
was also heavily armored. It was
one of the most efficient bodies
of shock troops in our entire
line. They carried circular
shields, about three feet in diameter,
with a vision slit and a
small rocket gun. These shields
were held at arm's length in the
left hand on going into action.
In the right hand was carried an
ax-gun, an affair not unlike the
battle-ax of the Middle Ages. It
was about three feet long. The
shaft consisted of a rocket gun,
with an ax-blade near the muzzle,
and a spike at the other end.
It was a terrible weapon. Jointed
leg-guards protected the ax-gunner
below the rim of his
shield, and a hemispherical helmet,
the front section of which
was of transparent ultron reaching
down to the chin, completed
his equipment.</p>
<hr />
<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">The</span> Susquannas also had a
long-gun unit in the field.</p>
<p>One company of my Wyomings
I had equipped with a weapon
which I designed myself. It was
a long-gun which I had adapted
for bayonet tactics such as American
troops used in the First
World War, in the Twentieth
Century. It was about the length
of the ancient rifle, and was fitted
with a short knife bayonet.
The stock, however, was replaced
by a narrow ax-blade and a spike.
It had two hand-guards also. It
was fired from the waist position.</p>
<p>In hand-to-hand work one
lunged with the bayonet in a
vicious, swinging up-thrust, following
through with an up-thrust
of the ax-blade as one
rushed in on one's opponent, and
then a down-thrust of the butt-spike,
developing into a down-slice
of the bayonet, and a final
upward jerk of the bayonet at
the throat and chin with a shortened
grip on the barrel, which
had been allowed to slide through
the hands at the completion of
the down-slice.</p>
<p>I almost regretted that we
would not find ourselves opposed
to the Delaware ax-men in this
campaign, so curious was I to
compare the efficiency of the two
bodies.</p>
<p>But both the Delawares and
my own men were elated at the
news that the Hans intended to
fight it out on the ground at
last, and the prospect that we
might in consequence come to
close quarters with them.</p>
<p>Many of the Gang Bosses were
dubious about our Wyoming policy
of providing our fighters
with no inertron armor as protection
against the disintegrator
ray of the Hans. Some of them
even questioned the value of all
weapons intended for hand-to-hand
fighting.</p>
<p>As Warn, of the Sandsnipers
put it: "You should be in a better
position than anyone, Rogers,
with your memories of the
Twentieth Century, to appreciate
that between the superdeadliness
of the rocket gun and of the disintegrator
ray there will never
be any opportunity for hand-to-hand
work. Long before the opposing
forces could come to
grips, one or the other will be
wiped out."</p>
<p>But I only smiled, for I remembered
how much of this
same talk there was five centuries
ago, and that it was even
predicted in 1914 that no war
could last more than six months.</p>
<hr />
<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">That</span> there would be hand-to-hand
work before we were
through, and in plenty, I was
convinced, and so every able-bodied
youth I could muster was
enrolled in my infantry battalion
and spent most of his time in
vigorous bayonet practice. And
for the same reason I had discarded
the idea of armor. I felt it
would be clumsy, and questioned
its value. True, it was an absolute
bar against the disintegrator
ray, but of what use would
that be if a Han ray found a
crevice between overlapping
plates, or if the ray was used to
annihilate the very earth beneath
the wearer's feet?</p>
<p>The only protective equipment
that I thought was worth a
whoop was a very peculiar device
with which a contingent of
five hundred Altoonas was supplied.
They called it the "umbra-shield."
It was a bell-shaped affair
of inertron, counterweighted
with ultron, about eight feet
high. The gunner, who walked
inside it, carried it easily with
two shoulder straps. There were
handles inside too, by which the
gunner might more easily balance
it when running, or lift it
to clear any obstructions on the
ground.</p>
<p>In the apex of the affair, above
his head, was a small turret, containing
an automatic rocket gun.
The periscopic gun sight and
the controls were on a level with
the operator's eyes. In going into
action he could, after taking
up his position, simply stoop until
the rim of the umbra-shield
rested on the ground, or else slip
off the shoulder straps, and stand
there, quite safe from the disintegrator
ray, and work his gun.</p>
<p>But again, I could not see
what was to prevent the Hans
from slicing underneath it, instead
of directly at it, with their
rays.</p>
<hr />
<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">As</span> I saw it, any American who
was unfortunate enough to
get in the direct path of a "dis"
ray, was almost certain to "go
out," unless he was locked up
tight in a complete shell of inertron,
as for instance, in an inertron
swooper. It seemed to me
better to concentrate all our efforts
on tactics of attack, trusting
to our ability to get the
Hans before they got us.</p>
<p>I had one other main unit besides
my bayonet battalion, a
long-gun contingent composed
entirely of girls, as were my
scout units and most of my auxiliary
contingents. These youngsters
had been devoting themselves
to target practice for
months, and had developed a fine
technique of range-finding and
the various other tactics of
Twentieth Century massed artillery,
to which was added the scientific
perfection of the rocket
guns and an average mental
alertness that would have put
the artilleryman of the First
World War to shame.</p>
<p>From the information our contact
guard had obtained, it appeared
that the Hans had developed
a type of "groundship" completely
protected by a disintegrator
ray "canopy" that was operated
from a short mast, and
spread down around it as a cone.</p>
<p>These ships were merely adaptations
of their airships, and
were designed to travel but a few
feet above the ground. Their repeller
rays were relatively weak;
just strong enough to lift them
about ten or twelve feet from the
surface. Hence they would draw
but lightly upon the power
broadcast from the city, and
great numbers of them could be
used. A special ray at the stern
propelled them, and an extra-lift
ray in the bow enabled them
to nose up over ground obstacles.
Their most formidable feature
was the cone-shaped "canopy" of
short-range disintegrator rays designed
to spread down around
them from a circular generator
at the tip of a twenty-foot mast
amidship. This would annihilate
any projectile shot at it, for
they naturally could not reach
the ship without passing
through the cone of rays.</p>
<p>It was instantly obvious that
the "ground ships" would prove
to be the "tanks" of the Twenty-fifth
century, and with due allowance
for the fact that they
were protected with a sheathing
of annihilating rays instead of
with steel, that they would have
about the same handicaps and
advantages as tanks, except that
since they would float lightly on
short repeller rays, they could
hardly resort to the destructive
crushing tactics of the tanks of
the First World War.</p>
<hr />
<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">As</span> soon as our first supplies
of inertron-sheathed rockets
came through, their invulnerability
would be at an end, as indeed
would be that of the Han
cities themselves. But these projectiles
were not yet out of the
factories.</p>
<p>In the meantime, however, the
groundships would be hard to
handle. Each of them we understood
would be equipped with a
thin long-range "dis" ray,
mounted in a turret at the base
of the mast.</p>
<p>We had no information as to
the probable tactics of the Hans
in the use of these ships. One
sure method of destroying them
would be to bury mines in their
path, too deep for the penetration
of their protecting canopy,
which would not, our engineers
estimated, cut deeper than about
three feet a second. But we
couldn't ring Nu-Yok with a continuous
mine on a radius of from
five to fifteen or twenty miles.
Nor could we be certain beforehand
of the direction of their attack.</p>
<p>In the end, after several hours'
discussion, we agreed on a flexible
defense. Rather than risk
many lives, we would withdraw
before them, test their effectiveness
and familiarize ourselves
with the tactics they adopted. If
possible, we would send engineers
in behind them from the
flanks, to lay mines in the probable
path of their return, providing
their first attack proved
to be a raid and not an advance to
consolidate new positions.</p>
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