Captain Future 20 - The Solar Invasion (Fall 1946) by Manly Wade Wellman Page B

of the action involved the use of an entire planetoid that, moving through Dimension X to a position approximating that of Asteroid No. 697, was then bodily shifted over.
    Six fighting spacecraft, no more than cruiser class but heavily armed with weapons designed under Ul Quorn’s supervision to fight and destroy Solar System forces, hovered in the dim-lighted ether of Dimension X. Before them yawned a seeming black emptiness, a true hole in emptiness.
    “In,” came the order of the Commander, Thai Thar, over his speaker system.
    “In,” echoed the senior officers of the other ships.
    One after another, the craft whisked into the emptiness, negotiating the dizzy change from dimension to dimension, and dropped down upon the quiet surface that was no longer identifiable as the captured asteroid.
    “All out!” Thai Thar was commanding, and the six crews poured into the open.
    The followings drew up before Thai Thar.
    “Have the men stack arms,” he ordered.
    Three of the junior commanders stared. They were Ul Quorn’s lieutenants drawn from the Solar System, a little nervous because their chief was reported in confinement — Captain Future, rumor had it, had made a fool of him once again. They wanted to counterbalance Ul Quorn’s disgrace by a bold stroke into invasion territory.
    “What does this mean?” asked an officer.
    “Stack arms!” repeated Thai Thar. “Assemble the men before me in close order. I have important things to say.”
    It was done. The invasion force, several hundred Pale People, drew up expectantly on smooth ground between fungoid thickets. The rank and file was of the lower order, gnomelike little men with long arms, bandy legs and apelike posture.
    Junior officers were of the aristocrat class like Thai Thar, resembling handsome but blanched Earthmen. To one side, as directed, were gathered the weapons — rifles, tendril-spitting devices, and agonizing light-casters that could blind eyes not fitted to endure the glare.
    “Junior officers fall out and guard the stacked arms,” said Thai Thar.
     
    AT THIS, one of the subordinates objected.
    “That’s not according to plan,” growled one of Ul Quorn’s henchmen. “This is no time for lectures. Already the observatories on Earth and Mars may have learned that an asteroid has slipped away between dimensions. Cruisers will be heading this way. We ought to set up shifts to get into their dimension, ready to grab them and carry out the next phase of our conquest.”
    “You’re insubordinate,” snapped Thai Thar, and the fellow subsided. Thai Thar faced the close ranks of Pale People.
    “You are all prisoners of war,” he announced.
    Instantly the junior officers seized weapons from the stacks and came to the ready. On the opposite side, figures stole forth from the thickets — figures in space-suits with police insignia, Earthmen and Martians and others, armed and tense.
    The quickest witted of Ul Quorn’s men sprang at Thai Thar. Somebody laughed in his ear. He knew that laugh — and then he knew nothing as the big fist of Captain Future knocked him spinning into senselessness.
    “Anybody else want to argue?” inquired Captain Future. “No? Ezra, these specimens are Ul Quorn’s gutter-sweepings, who hoped to be heroes of his sneak invasion. Take them into custody.”
    Thai Thar smiled at the leaderless, bewildered rank and file.
    “This part of the war is over,” he said for all to hear. “I shall now tell what the Overlord planned for our group.” He paused. “Will you judge by what I say.”
    “Talk, Thai Thar,” ventured someone. “You have always been fair.”
    “Perhaps that was my downfall,” continued Thai Thar. “The Overlord hates me and the class for which I stand, the old leadership that hoped to make the best of our dimming, dying system. I was assigned here, and these officers with me, to die in the first battles and interfere with the Overlord’s power-dreams no more. For you rank and file, he cared