Battlefield Earth

The remains of the rig were plain. The platform was a hole. The poles were all leaning outward.

The compound domes had lain under the edge of the plateau and had been lifted by concussion and blown away, leaving the familiar underground layout plain in view.

Bringing the compound in closer one could see what must be a year's growth of grass in crevices.

There was no sign of life.

Jo

Angus got them and Jo

“I know what happened,” said Jo

Light. It traveled approximately 5,869,713,600,000 miles a year. The

light which came from Psychlo on that hour and date was still traveling in space. They would get just ahead of it, and with a picto-recorder from a star drone set for 6,000,000,000,000X magnification, they would look at Psychlo at the instant it occurred. Whatever had occurred.

It had been just a few days ago over a year ago.

Choose a sidereal angle to aim the scope. Avoid nearby heavenly bodies so that the cage would not be influenced by gravity and would stay there for two or three minutes. No, let's be brave and put it there for fifteen minutes and hope it doesn't move and we get it back.

It took a while to set up. They had to readjust magnification, tune in heat sensors, and blind them to other bodies. Calculate seconds.

They fired the cage.

The wires hummed in holding for the long required time. They called the cage back.

It arrived!

It was a little misplaced on the platform. Jo

It was like teasing a thirsty man by withholding a water skin from him.

Finally they projected it. What a brilliant picture! They had thought it might be fuzzy such as you get with heat waves. But the light that had traveled for over a year was crystal-clear and straight.

There was the imperial City of Psychlo. Circular tram rails, streets down from its cliffs like conveyor belts. They even carried the idea of mining into their city design.

Huge, bustling Psychlo! The center of power of the universes. The hub of the great, cruel claw that raked the bones from planets and peoples everywhere. There was the three-hundred-two-thousand-year-old monster itself, spread out in its sadistic and ugly might!

Neither Jo

You ever see so many beings? Even in such a tiny size one could see mobs!

They were daunted.

They compared it to their own towns, even to their own ruined cities. These didn't measure up to it at all.

What arrogance to attack anything like that.

They were so awestruck and impressed they hadn't even been looking at the transshipment rig of Psychlo. They missed the begi

They adjusted the projector lens and position to get the transshipment platform of Psychlo more centered and enlarged.

And then they saw the whole sequence, just as it had occurred right after Jo

First, there were the Psychlo workers racing out to leave the platform clear for the incoming semia

There was the first shimmer of arrival of the Psychlos Jo

Then a small puff.

There were the Psychlo workmen flinching back.

A force screen had gone on! A dome over the platform had closed instantly to contain that small explosion. It could not have been an atmosphere armor cable. Some sort of shimmering, sparkling screen. Transparent but very much there.

Trucks had time to start up before anything else occurred. One huge

emergency truck had lunged nearer the platform, evidently to handle the minor blast. A whole minute went by.

Then the first lethal coffin exploded!

A big “planet buster” nuclear bomb, nestled into a bed of dirty mines.

The force screen held.

The holocaust was contained. The boiling, ferocious blast had not even bulged the screen.

Then another shock as the second coffined “planet buster” went off.

The screen held! Good lord, what technology to build a screen like that. What power it must take to hold it.

Another shock inside that dome. The third planet buster. It and all its ancient, very dirty atomic bombs. The screen held.

Psychlos were racing toward it from far off. Those near the platform were flattened by concussion transmitting through the screen.

The fourth contained bomb went off. The screen still held.

But the transmitted concussion had hurled the emergency truck backward. Nearby buildings lost their glass.

The ground was shaking as though hit by gigantic earthquakes.

A nearby building suddenly dropped downward as though sucked from below. Other buildings began to go the same way.

The fifth bomb went off!

And seen in slow motion, first narrowly, then more broadly, the entire scene went into a churning, boiling mass of atomic fire.

No, something more! Molten, flaming fire was erupting in spots all over the plain.

They widened the angle quickly.

The whole Imperial City of Psychlo was sinking and all about it sprayed up rolling oceans of molten fire.

The circular trams, the mobs, the buildings, and even the towering cliffs were drowning in a tumult of liquid, yellow-green flame.

They hastily widened the view.

And they saw the entire planet of Psychlo turn into a radioactive sun!

The recording ended. They sat limp. “My god,” said Angus.

Jo

He had thought the bombs would wipe out the company headquarters and perhaps the imperial City. But they had created a new sun.

“What happened?” said Angus.

Jo

He made a dropping gesture with his hand. "In the fight, I dropped the fuse tabs on the platform. I forgot them. They must have been slightly radioactive, and when they hit the Psychlo platform, they made a small puff of explosion. They are what caused the minor recoil last year.

“They triggered the force screen on Psychlo that the Chamcos mentioned. And that force screen was good enough and strong enough to contain the blasts.

“I read in a book Char had that the crust of Psychlo is riddled with abandoned mine shafts and tu

“The fifth explosion penetrated the core. The next five exploded in that.