Astounding British Edition, Volume 8, No. 11 — page 25: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE SPECTER GENERAL The pilot saw movement down there but they must have spotted us on our way in. There’s still no evidence of energy radia- tion. They must have everything shut down.” “That’s not good!” said Krogson. “They’ve probably got all their heavy stuff set up waiting for us to sweep over. We'll have to hit them hard and fast. Did they spot the scout?” “Can’t tell, sir.” “We'd better assume that they did. Notify all gunnery officers to switch their batteries over to central control. If we come in fast and high and hit them with simultaneous fleet concentration, we can vaporize the whole base before they can take a crack at us.” “T’ll send the order out at once, sir,” the executive officer. The fleet pulled into tight formation and headed toward the Imperial base. They were halfway there when the fleet gunnery officer entered the control room and said apolo- getically to Commander Krogson, “Excuse me, sir, but I'd like to suggest a trial run. Fleet concentration is a tricky thing and if something went haywire—we’d be sitting ducks for the ground batteries.” “Good idea,” said Krogson thoughtfully. “There’s too much at stake to have any- thing go wrong, Select an equivalent target and we'll make a pass.” The fleet was now passing over a tower- ing mountain chain. “How about that bald spot dowti there?” said the Exec. pointing to a rocky expanse that jutted out from the side of one of the towering peaks. “Good enough,” said Krogson. “All ships on central control!” reported the gunnery officer. “On target’ reported the tech on the tracking screen. “One. Two. Three. Four—” Kurt stood by the front observation port watching the ground below sweep by. He had been listening intently but what had been said didn’t make sense. There had been something about batieries—the term was alien to him-—-and something about the garrison. He decided to ask the commander what it was all about but the intentness with which Krogson was watching the ttrack- ing screen deterred him. Instead he gazed moodily down at the mountains below him. “Five. Six. Seven. Ready, FIRE?” A savage shudder ran through the great ship as her ground-pointed batteries blasted in unison. Seconds went by and then sud- said 23 denly the rocky expanse on the shoulder of the mountain directly below twinkled as blinding flashes of actinic light danced across it. Then as Kurt watched, great masses of rock and earth moved slowly skyward from the center of the spurting nests of tangled flame. Still slowly, as if buoyed up by the thin mountain air, the debris began to fall back again until it was lost from sight in quick rising mushrooms of jet-black smoke. Kurt turned and looked back toward Commander Krogson. Batteries must be things that had torn the mountains below apart. And garrison—there was only one garrison! “I ordered fleet fire,” barked Krogson. “This ship was the only one that cut loose. What happened?” “Just a second, sir,” said the executive officer, “I'll try and find out.” He was busy for a minute on the intercom system. “The other ships were ready, sir,” he reported finally. “Their guns were all switched over to our control but no impulse came through. Central fire control must be on the blink!” He gestured toward a complex bank of equipment that occupied one Satire corfier of the control room, Commander Krogson said a few approp- riate words. When he reached the point where he was beginning to repeat himself, he paused and stood in frozen silence for a good thirty seconds. “Would you mind getting a fire control tech in here to fix that obscenity bank?” he asked in a voice that put everyone’s teeth on edge. The other seemed to have something to say but he was having trouble getting it out. “Well?” said Krogson. “Prime Base grabbed our last one two weeks ago. There isn’t another left with the fieet.” “Doesn’t look like much to me,” said Kurt as he strolled over to examine the bank of equipment. “Get away from there!” roared the com- mander. “We’ve got enough trouble with- out you making things worse.” Kurt ignored him and began to open inspection ports. “Guard!” yelled Krogson. “Throw that man out of here!” Ozaki interrupted timidly. “Beg partiob, commander, but he can fix it if anyeeyy can.’ ote: Pi’ Krogson whirled on the flight <i: ; ae Cconmmiclooo “How do you know?” aa