Battlefield Earth

He got out a torch and shone it down into the blackness.

He was looking at the top of the main motor drive!

The housing was as big as a one-story house. It made him realize that the whole underside of the drone was motors and additional gas canister storage. What tons and tons and tons of lethal gas this carried! The canisters glowed like monster fish in the darkness. But the housing!

Jo

There must be an inspection and maintenance plate on this housing!

With a wary look up the long passageway, he slid down and braced his feet on the structural support members of the housing. He played the light around.

It was hard to keep an eye on the corridor from this position, and he alternated looks at the housing with looks at the corridor. Maybe he really ought to work out how to get rid of Zzt before he went on with this. He had to duck down to see the housing.

But doing something with Zzt might put an end to himself and he reminded himself that too many lives– in fact the only human lives left– depended on him. Courage aside, he mustn't risk his neck. Bear in a cave. He decided he could chance it and ducked down.

There it was!

A huge inspection plate.

Held down by four twelve-inch nuts.

But what an unhandy place. Handy maybe for a Psychlo mechanic to reach down with huge long arms. Not handy for him.

He banged off another shot up the passageway. He ducked down and adjusted the wrench. He gripped the first nut.

Yikes, it was tight. No one-hand job with this big wrench. Psychlos didn't know their own strength when putting nuts on.

He inspected the corridor again. He had to lay down the assault rifle to do this. He made sure the place he put it braced it reasonably so it wouldn't slide out the door. He still had his revolver in its holster.

He eased down and, with two hands on the wrench, legs braced, heaved on the nut.

It turned!

He had learned enough about mechanics not to just undo and take off one nut. He'd find the last one wedged tight. So loosen all four about half a turn each....

He had number two loosened. He was straining at number three. “What are you doing!” roared Zzt.

Jo

“You dimwitted, stupid slug!” roared Zzt. "If you monkey with those motors this thing will just crash!”

Thank you, Zzt, said Jo

“If you leave it alone, this thing will just land by itself in two or three days!” howled Zzt.

Actually, Zzt was getting panicky. There was something very peculiar about those shots the animal kept sending up the passageway. Right now the exhale valve on his breathe-mask had sparked slightly. For some minutes he had been aware of little tiny sparks around him. He had thought they were dust motes at first and then thought something was wrong with his eyes, that he was seeing tiny molecular flashes in his head. But this last exhale had actually sparked. Was there radiation around here? Was that animal throwing uranium dust around? Wait, were those slugs or was that gun he used operated by radiation?

He had decided he better act, regardless of consequences. Yes, there was another tiny flash when the mask exhaled spent breathe-gas into the air!

“You've got a mask!” roared Zzt. “This kill-gas won't blow back in the drone. Just wait until it lands!” The stupid, filthy animal. Damn Terl!

“How about other people down there?” said Jo

That shut Zzt up for the moment. He could not work out how something happening to somebody else had any bearing on what one would do for himself.

“Leave those motors alone!” screamed Zzt.

The Psychlo was getting hysterical. Maybe he would charge. Jo

The fifty-pound floor plate, sailing in a deadly spin, traveling with the speed of a ca

The assault rifle flew from his clutching hand and went out into the dark. Holding somehow on to consciousness he fumbled for the revolver. There was nothing but darkness in front of his eyes.

Part XIV

Chapter 1

They had the compound!

A final dive of Glenca

Glenca

Scots, howling with joy, had pulled him out and pounded him on the back until sternly reminded by the parson that the pilot had broken ribs.

A few more bursts of assault rifles had cleaned off some snipers.

The pipe major had cut loose with bagpipes. The other piper and the drummer had thrown aside their rifles and picked up their instruments, and the high-pitched wail and low drone of pipes skirled across the compound to the beat of the drum.

The last remaining Psychlos came stumbling out of the underground with their paws on high. Oddly enough, they soon proved to be top-flight graduates of the various company schools and their female assistants.

Breathe-masks had been in short supply, having been put on combat teams who were going out to fight. But as Robert the Fox noted, these top-drawer ones had had their own personal masks. There were about thirty of them left alive.

Hundreds of Psychlos had died in the fire fights and hundreds more in the air flooding. By eventual count there had been nine hundred seventy-six Psychlos in this compound.

Ker tried to get away by crawling through an exhaust vent and was captured alive.

They got the fire system water valves and shut them off. A team raced around checking for radiation with open breathe-gas vials and it was found that water had washed it down into underground drains. The area was relatively safe.

Chrissie had been spotted by the

Scots, and the news earlier rumored to that effect was now confirmed as she went about helping the parson collect wounded Scots on a flatbed that had been gotten ru

Scots under the direction of Angus were trying to get the tumble and jumble of forklifts operating. The whole hangar door was blocked solid with wrecked planes and they could not move any planes out. They told a worried Robert the Fox it would be hours before they could get forklifts ru

Terl tried to manage a last ploy. He got to see Robert the Fox by saying he had something urgent. They brought Terl up with hoist chains wrapped around him and held in four different directions by four brawny Scots while two others held assault rifles on him.