Edison's Conquest of Mars Part 18

CHAPTER ELEVEN

_THE EARTH GIRL_

It was a wild plunge. We kept off the decks while rus.h.i.+ng through the blinding smoke, but the instant we emerged below, where we found ourselves still a mile above the ground, we were out again, ready to strike.

I have simply a confused recollection of flas.h.i.+ng lights beneath, and a great, dark arch of clouds above, out of which our s.h.i.+ps seemed dropping on all sides, and then the fray burst on and around us, and no man could see or notice anything except by half-comprehended glances.

Almost in an instant, it seemed, a swarm of airs.h.i.+ps surrounded us, while from what, for lack of a more descriptive name, I shall call the forts about the Lake of the Sun, leaped tongues of electric fire, before which some of our s.h.i.+ps, were driven like bits of flaming paper in a high wind, gleaming for a moment, then curling up and gone forever!

It was an awful sight; but the battle fever was raging within us, and we, on our part, were not idle.

Every man carried a disintegrator, and these hand instruments, together with those of heavier caliber on the s.h.i.+p poured their resistless vibrations in every direction through the quivering air.

The airs.h.i.+ps of the Martians were destroyed by the score, and yet they flocked upon us thicker and faster.

We dropped lower and our blows fell upon the forts, and upon the wide spread city bordering the Lake of the Sun. We almost entirely silenced the fire of one of the forts; but there were forty more in full action within reach of our eyes!

Some of the metallic buildings were partly unroofed by the disintegrators and some had their walls riddled and fell with thundering crashes, whose sound rose to our ears above the h.e.l.lish din of battle. I caught glimpses of giant forms struggling in the ruins and rus.h.i.+ng wildly through the streets, but there was no time to see anything clearly.

Our flags.h.i.+p seemed charmed. A crowd of airs.h.i.+ps hung upon it like a swarm of angry bees, and, at times, one could not see for the lightning strokes--yet we escaped destruction, while ourselves dealing death on every hand.

It was a glorious fight, but it was not war; no, it was not war. We really had no more chance of ultimate success amid that mult.i.tude of enemies than a prisoner running the gauntlet in a crowd of savages has of escape.

A conviction of the hopelessness of the contest finally forced itself upon our minds, and the shattered squadron, which had kept well together amid the storm of death, was signalled to retreat.

Shaking off their pursuers, as a hunted bear shakes off the dogs, sixty of the electrical s.h.i.+ps rose up through the clouds where more than ninety had gone down!

Madly we rushed upward through the vast curtain and continued our flight to a great elevation, far beyond the reach of the awful artillery of the enemy.

Looking back it seemed the very mouth of h.e.l.l from which we had escaped.

The Martians did not for an instant cease their fire, even when we were far beyond their reach. With furious persistence they blazed away through the cloud curtain, and the vivid spikes of lightning shuddered so swiftly on one another's track that they were like a flaming halo of electric lances around the frowning helmet of the War Planet.

But after a while they stopped their terrific sparring, and once more the immense globe a.s.sumed the appearance of a vast ball of black smoke still widely agitated by the recent disturbance, but exhibiting no opening through which we could discern what was going on beneath.

Evidently the Martians believed they had finished us.

At no time since the beginning of our adventure had it appeared to me quite so hopeless, reckless and mad as it seemed at present.

We had suffered fearful losses, and yet what had we accomplished? We had won two fights on the asteroid, it is true, but then we had overwhelming numbers on our side.

Now we were facing millions on their own ground, and our very first a.s.sault had resulted in a disastrous repulse, with the loss of at least thirty electric s.h.i.+ps and 600 men!

Evidently we could not endure this sort of thing. We must find some other means of a.s.sailing Mars or else give up the attempt.

But the latter was not to be thought. It was no mere question of self-pride, however, and no consideration of the tremendous interests at stake, which would compel us to continue our apparently vain attempt.

Our provisions could last only a few days longer. The supply would not carry us one-quarter of the way back to earth, and we must therefore remain here and literally conquer or die.

In this extremity a consultation of the princ.i.p.al officers was called upon the deck of the flags.h.i.+p.

Here the suggestion was made that we should attempt to effect by strategy what we had failed to do by force.

An old army officer who had served in many wars against the cunning Indians of the West, Colonel Alonzo Jefferson Smith, was the author of this suggestion.

"Let us circ.u.mvent them," he said. "We can do it in this way. The chances are that all of the available fighting force of the planet Mars is now concentrated on this side and in the neighborhood of The Lake of the Sun.

"Possibly, by some kind of X-ray business, they can only see us dimly through the clouds, and if we get a little further away they will not be able to see us at all.

"Now, I suggest that a certain number of the electrical s.h.i.+ps be withdrawn from the squadron to a great distance, while the remainder stay here; or, better still, approach to a point just beyond the reach of those streaks of lightning, and begin a bombardment of the clouds without paying any attention to whether the strokes reach through the clouds and do any damage or not.

"This will induce the Martians to believe that we are determined to press our attack at this point.

"In the meantime, while these s.h.i.+ps are raising a hulabaloo on this side of the planet, and drawing their fire, as much as possible, without running into any actual danger, let the others which have been selected for the purpose, sail rapidly around to the other side of Mars and take them in the rear."

It was not perfectly clear what Colonel Smith intended to do after the landing had been effected in the rear of the Martians, but still there seemed a good deal to be said for his suggestion, and it would, at any rate, if carried out, enable us to learn something about the condition of things on the planet, and perhaps furnish us with a hint as to how we could best proceed in the further prosecution of the siege.

Accordingly it was resolved that about twenty s.h.i.+ps should be told off for this movement, and Colonel Smith himself was placed in command.

At my desire I accompanied the new commander in his flags.h.i.+p.

Rising to a considerable elevation in order that there might be no risk of being seen, we began our flank movement while the remaining s.h.i.+ps, in accordance with the understanding, dropped nearer the curtain of cloud and commenced a bombardment with the disintegrators, which caused a tremendous commotion in the clouds, opening vast gaps in them, and occasionally revealing a glimpse of the electric lights on the planet, although it was evident that the vibratory currents did not reach the ground. The Martians immediately replied to this renewed attack, and again the cloud covered globe bristled with lightning, which flashed so fiercely out of the blackness below that the stoutest hearts among us quailed, although we were situated well beyond the danger.

But this sublime spectacle rapidly vanished from our eyes when, having attained a proper elevation, we began our course toward the opposite hemisphere of the planet.

We guided our flight by the stars, and from our knowledge of the rotation period of Mars, and the position which the princ.i.p.al points on its surface must occupy at certain hours, we were able to tell what part of the planet lay beneath us.

Having completed our semi-circuit we found ourselves on the night side of Mars, and determined to lose no time in executing our coup. But it was deemed best that an exploration should first be made by a single electrical s.h.i.+p, and Colonel Smith naturally wished to undertake the adventure with his own vessel.

We dropped rapidly through the black cloud curtain, which proved to be at least half a mile in thickness, and then suddenly emerged, as if suspended at the apex of an enormous dome, arching above the surface of the planet a mile beneath us, which sparkled on all sides with innumerable lights.

These lights were so numerous and so brilliant as to produce a faint imitation of daylight, even at our immense height above the ground, and the dome of cloud out of which we had emerged a.s.sumed a soft fawn color which produced an indescribably beautiful effect.

For a moment we recoiled from our undertaking, and arrested the motion of the electric s.h.i.+p.

But on closely examining the surface beneath us we found that there was a broad region, where comparatively few bright lights were to be seen.

From my knowledge of the geography of Mars I knew that this was a part of the Land of Ausonia, situated a few hundred miles northeast of h.e.l.las, where we had first seen the planet.

Evidently it was not so thickly populated as some of the other parts of Mars, and its comparative darkness was an attraction to us. We determined to approach within a few hundred feet of the ground with the electric s.h.i.+p, and then, in case no enemies appeared, to visit the soil itself.

"Perhaps we shall see or hear something that will be of use to us," said Colonel Smith, "and for the purposes of this first reconnaissance it is better that we should be few in number. The other s.h.i.+ps will await our return, and at any rate we shall not be gone long."

As our car approached the ground we found ourselves near the tops of some lofty trees.

"This will do," said Colonel Smith to the electrical steersman, "Stay right here."