Harry Harrison: Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers

"It's great to be part of the team again." John grinned and knuckled the tears from his cheeks. "What can I do to help?"

"We have a little problem," Jerry explained. "We have to take off so the cheddite projector will be able to work, but there is no oxygen in the atmosphere here. So we have to rig a supply of oxygen from the tanks here to the engines. . . ."

"I'm afraid that's out," Chuck said after mumbling some quick equations to himself. "I've worked out the amount of oxygen the engines need and how much we have in the tanks and I figure we have just enough to move us one hundred and ten feet. Allowing no time for engine warm-up."

"Then that's out." Chuck grimaced, striking his fist into his open palm. "So we'll just have to find another way."

"That seems sort of obvious." John smiled. "Being an American has really stirred up my old brain box, and I'm thinking in a realistic capitalistic way, instead of slavishly socialistic, and believe me, it works wonders! The answer is right outside that window."

They all looked and Sally started screaming again at the sight of the beaks, eyes and tentacles. John went on.

"While I was sitting there, I had plenty of time to look at those critturs and think about them. What attracted them to this plane? Not just curiosity, they don't seem that type, but something. Not heat, our temperature would be like a blowtorch to them. And I noticed that they are most thick out there around the air compressors."

"Oxygen!" Jerry said, snapping his fingers. "Of course. As it leaks out, they suck it up. They like oxygen. Which proves that this planet once had an Earthlike atmosphere, and these creatures are nothing but degenerate descendants of the former inhabitants. They must have a source of oxygen. All we have to do is find it and we can take off. We're going out there."

"The Titanians will attack us for the oxygen in our blood," Chuck said, realistically.

"Then we'll fight," John said, jaw set firmly. "And they'll know they've been in a fracas."

Preparations were quickly made. They sawed through the floor to gain access to the forward cargo hold, where the team's luggage was stored. Since the temperature outside was 200 degrees below zero, they had to bundle up warmly. Each of them put on layer after layer of football clothes and pads and helmets to protect their heads, slinging portable oxygen tanks at their waists. Sally was busy too, using needle and thread that she found in her purse to make them all gloves from the cheerleaders' uniforms.

Chuck wore his own uniform with his big number one blazoned front and back. They found number two for Jerry, who, though he could play football of course, did not go out for it since he was too busy captaining the hockey team, as well as captaining the fencing and chess teams. Since John was new to the team and not enrolled in the school, he smilingly settled for ninety-nine.

"We need weapons," Chuck said, taking command of the team. "I'll use the ax from the rescue kit."

"Heat is their enemy, so the oxyhydrogen torch is mine," Jerry added.

"If I use the alcohol from the first-aid kit, I can clean all the lubrication from my submachine gun, and it will fire at two hundred degrees below zero," John concluded.

"Here we go, team," Chuck said. "Lock the door behind us, Sally, and only open it if we knock three times."

"Good luck, boys," Sally said, and patted each rugged shoulder as it rushed by her into the fight.

The battle was joined. Evidently the smell of hot oxygen drove the Titanians into a frenzy of lust, and they hurled themselves to the attack with a terrible fury. Back to back the Americans faced them and coolly wreaked havoc in their hideous ranks. Tirelessly the great arm of Chuck rose and fell like a butcher's over the block, and tentacles and eye-bulging heads flew in all directions, green ichor spurting like rain. Nor was Jerry being sluggard. His torch cut through the advancing ranks of the enemy like a sword of victory, sizzling them into dismembered and cooked fragments. Coolly, John sighted his gun and fired only single shots, yet every single shot went true, right between the second and third eye of a hideous head and into the malformed brain behind it. And still they came. And still they died. To face the enemy the comrades had to climb the mounting pile of dead bodies that grew about them, and so the slaughter went on until the last of the vile attackers met his well-deserved fate. Smoke curled from the hot barrel of the gun, ichor dripped from the nowlowered ax, and the oxyhydrogen torch was turned off to save the gas.

"Well done, men," Chuck said, and they clambered and slipped down the forty-foot-high mountain of corpses to the ground. "Anyone hurt?"

"A few scratches." The others laughed. "Nothing that counts."

"Then let's go get that oxygen. During the battle I noticed that most of the Titanians were coming from that direction, and if you look closely at that ridge, you will see a kind of white band toward the bottom. I'll bet my bottom dollar that that is frozen oxygen!"

They hurried toward the ridge, but before they could reach it, tragedy struck.

A shrill scream pierced the thin Titanian atmosphere, and they stopped as one and spun about on their heels. To see a sight so awful that it would be branded in their memories forever.

The cabin door stood open, and dropping down from the wing were a dozen of the hideous Titanians.

And carried in their midst, wrapped about by slimy tentacles, was the screaming, struggling, lovely form of Sally Goodfellow.

Paralysis gripped them, but only momentarily. Before the enemy had slithered another foot with the captive girl, the vengeful Americans were hot on their trail, weapons awave.

"Chin up, Sally!" Chuck bellowed. "Here we come!"

"I don't think . . . she can hear you," Jerry answered between gasping breaths. "She has no oxygen tank, so she is already unconscious."

And so she was, her screams were silenced, and she hung limply down the repulsive back of her captor. The fleeing Titanians looked back, easy enough to do since it could be seen now that they had four more eyes in the backs of their heads, and upon spotting the rushing avengers, they took defensive action. Half their number stopped and waited, frigid grasping tentacles raised for the attack. The battle was quickly joined. Heads flew right and left, and sundered tentacles littered the ground like so many salamis, and the Earthmen barely slowed in their rush. But more were waiting for them, and they were dispatched just as neatly. Now the coast was clear, the last of the rear guard dead, and only the fleeing Titanian with the unconscious girl across its shoulders remained.

But the holding action had succeeded in gaining this disgusting creature needed time, and just as they were onto the thing, it darted down a gaping trench in the ground. Without a thought, other than to save Sally, the three companions instantly followed it into the unknown. This was raw courage, the spirit that built the frontier and put men on the Moon. Unhesitatingly they went to whatever fate faced them ahead.

As it twisted. the trench deepened and then plunged into a black cave mouth. This cave was dimly illuminated by some sort of natural growth on the waIls, apparently a plant or vegetable of some kind that gave off a ghastly greenish glow just as do some forms of plankton in the seas of Earth. There was just enough light ro make out the fleeing figure of the kidnapper, and they went after it at full speed. It darted into a side tunnel before they could catch up with it, and then into another, always just outside their reach as though toying with them, leading them on. Give them credit, they did not consider their own peril for an instant but instead plunged on. They were just upon the fleeing Titanian when it emerged into a larger cave and scuttled slitheringly across its rough floor. After it they went, and they were just about to seize and render it when a burst of illumination flooded down upon them. By reflex they shielded their eyes, and when they could look up, they saw the source of this unexpected light.