Mission: Earth "Doomed Planet" by Ron L. Hubbard Page A

not tell how deep the cut was getting. All he could do was saw, saw, saw and hope. Surely sooner or later somebody would hear that whine. It was getting through his earplugs. It was LOUD! He had the horrible feeling that he was leaving skips-areas where the stone had not been sawed through. It was difficult to keep an even line: this equipment was supposed to be used from a stable platform sitting on the ground, not from a ship. Well, he couldn't just sit here sawing the rest of his life. He would have to make a try of it. He turned off the disintegrator-slasher. He eased the tug over to the right. He was now in view of Palace City: there it lay in gold and green, bathed in artificial light. He flipped on the traction engines in the rear of the tug. He maneuvered to take a good, solid grip on the mountaintop.
    BLAM!
    A shell slammed into the mountain. They had spotted him!
    BLAM! BLAM!
    The attractor-target, thank Heavens, was pulling the cannon wrong in aim. Just one of those shells landing and this tug would go up like smoke: no armor. Heller rammed open the throttles of the planetary drives. He yanked the Will-be Was time drives full on. The tug lunged ahead. The traction beams strained. The tug began to thresh about. The mountaintop was NOT moving! Heller looked down the slope toward the city. Made small by distance, an infantry squad was coming. They stopped amongst the boulders, knelt and levelled blast-rifles. Heller braced himself to receive a hit. The tug struggled to move the mountain.
    HIS WINDSCREEN SHATTERED!
    The tug's automatic warning went on, "Sir, my starboard Will-be Was converter drum is overheating. Please ease off." Heller took another lunge against the tow. An explosion sounded above him. A blastrifle must have hit one of the tube casings on top of the craft. This was getting too rough a situation. Suddenly he dropped the tow that refused to tow. He spun around to his right. He ducked behind the mountain out of the sight of the infantry. This was the time for the diversion. He took the remote out of his pocket, took the safety off and pressed it. It should begin to fire the pellets he had dropped into the city. They should begin to go off at intervals. That should make things interesting for them down there. And maybe he could complete his job. The trouble was, the mountaintop was not thoroughly cut through. In the tube underneath the belly, thinking this might happen, he had placed a hundred down-blast shatter mines. It meant he would have to make a circle around the mountain. He hoped his diversion had worked. He began to move clockwise around the peak. Every hundred yards, at approximately the place he had made the cut, he dropped a shatter mine. His explosions began to go off with a crump as each one hit. He stuck the tug's nose around the mountain shoulder, visible again from Palace City.
    BLOWIE!
    Something tore through the upper hull! His diversion had not worked! Then he realized he had made a mistake: he had been behind the mountain and the black hole when he hit the button, and the activating radio beam had not been powerful enough to get through! Well, diversion or not, he had to keep going. Dropping mines, air about him streaked with blast-rifle charges, taking shots in his hull, he completed the circle. Smoke was rolling through the tug. More than one thing had been hit. Hoping against hope that he had completed the severance with mines, he ducked back of the mountain again. He couldn't even see his screens. "Sir," said the tug, "my Will-be Was engine room is on fire. Could I recommend a visit to the nearest repair yard?" The idiocy of it made Heller realize that the computer banks must also have been hit. He pressed a manual emergency fire-suppression button. It was sloppy under his thumb. He glanced down: hydraulic fluid was pooling on the floor of the flight deck. Praying that his controls would still work, he worked the tractor engines to seize the mountain once again. He felt them grip.