Battlefield Earth

Psychlo gas. The myths and legends.

It had cruised eastward at 302.6 miles per hour.

Vital data, thought Jo

It had been attacked by fighter planes from Norway; it had not fought back; it had been hit with everything they had without the slightest evidence of damage to it.

Armor, thought Jo

An interchange on something called the “hotline” prevented a nuclear missile exchange between the United

States and Russia.

The “Don't fire; it isn't the Russians” message on the desk in the other complex, thought Jo

It was hit with nuclear weapons over Germany without the slightest apparent damage.

No pilots, thought Jo

It had then toured the major population centers of the world, dropping canisters and wiping out populations.

And wiped out the other complex of this base without even knowing or caring that it was there, thought Jo

It then went on to obliterate the eastern part of the United States. The reports had come in from “Dew Line” stations in the Arctic and some parts of Canada. It continued on its almost leisurely way to wipe out all population centers in the southern hemisphere. But at this point something else began to happen. Isolated observers and satellites reported tanks of a strange design materializing one after the other in various parts of the world and mopping up fleeing hordes of human beings.

Stage two; teleportation, thought Jo

Military reports, out of sequence and incomplete, were shuffled in with the reports of the tanks. All major military airfield installations, whether gassed out of existence or not, were being blown to bits by strange, very fast flying craft.

Battle planes teleported in at the same time as the tanks.

Reports of some tanks exploding, some battle planes exploding. Reasons not known.

Ma

The drone spotted by satellite landing near Colorado City, Colorado. Causes most structures there to collapse.

Preset remote control, thought Jo

Tank spotted by satellite shooting at pocket of cadets wearing flight oxygen masks at the Air Force Academy. Report by acting commander of corps of cadets. Then no further communication.

The last battle, thought Jo

Efforts from the com room to contact somebody, anybody, anywhere, via a remote ante

Radio tracking, thought Jo

Unspotted, but with their air shut off, the president and his aides and staff had lasted two more hours until they died of asphyxiation.

Jo

Feeling a bit strange for speaking, he said to the corpse, "I’m sorry no help came. We're something over a thousand years late.” He felt very bad.

His gloom would have followed him as he left the dreary, dark, cold quarters had not the barking, cheery voice of Du

“Jo

Chapter 5

Disaster struck in the form of an earthquake on Day 32 of the new year.

Shortly after midnight, the tremor awakened Jo

The old building groaned.

The rumble of the earthquake traveled on. It was followed by a second, lesser tremor a half-minute later, and then that was gone.

It was not too unusual in the Rockies. No damage seemed to be done in the old mining town.

Uneasy, but not really alarmed, Jo

The duty sentry's light was on. The young Scot was tapping a buzzer key that activated the communication system to the mine: it was a directional laser radio, limited to an exact width and undetectable beyond these mountains.

The Scot looked up. His face was a bit white. “They don't answer.” He tapped the key again more rapidly as though his finger by itself could shoot the beam through. “Maybe the receiver pole got twisted in the quake.”

In minutes, Jo

The night was black as coal; even the stars were masked by high, invisible clouds. It was no mean stunt flying these mountains in the dark. The instruments of the mine plane glowed green as the ship vaulted upward. The image screen painted a blurred picture of the terrain ahead. Jo

He knew that things had been going too well.

They had been making real progress in their preparations. They were far from ready, but what they had accomplished had been miraculous.

He hunted ahead for the next mountainside, checking the viewscreen. Good lord, it was dark! He checked his compass. The men in the back were tense and silent. He could almost feel what they were thinking.

The top knolled flipped by under them. A little too close. Where was the next one?

The assault rifles he had at first considered worthless were proving the very thing. With a great deal of ingenuity they had salvaged the ammunition. They had drawn out the bullets from the case and tapped out the primer. By careful experimentation they had found out how to substitute a blasting cap in the bottom of the shell case. At first they had thought they would also need powder and had blown up a rifle trying it– no casualties. It turned out that the blasting cap was enough to fire a bullet at high velocity.

Jo

Then they had taken the bullets and drilled a small hole in the nose and, wearing radiation suits, inserted a grain of radioactive material from a TNW. They had covered this with a thin bit of melted lead. In this way a man could carry the ammunition without danger of radiation hitting him.

But when it was fired, oh my! They tried it on breathe-gas in a glass bottle, and did that breathe-gas explode!

Too low, Jo

The bullets were also armor-piercing to some degree and, when fired into a breathe-gas vial two hundred yards away, caused a violent reaction that brought concussion all the way back to them.