Read Galactic Patrol for Free Online

atmosphere.
    VanBuskirk perceived the danger to his men in the slowly turning projector and for the first time called his chief.
    "Kim," he spoke in level tones into his microphone. "Blast that deltaray, will you? .
    . . . . Or have they cut this beam, so you can't hear me? . . . . . Guess they have."
    "They've cut our communication," he informed his troopers then. "Keep them off me as much as you can and I'll attend to that deltaray outfit myself."
    Aided by the massed interference of his men he plunged toward the threatening mechanism, hewing to right and to left as he strode. Beside the temporary projector-mount at last, he aimed a tremendous blow at the man at the deltaray controls, only to feel the axe flash instantaneously to its mark and strike it with a gentle push, and to see his Intended victim-float effortless away from the blow. The pirate commander had played his last card, vanBuskirk floundered, not only weightless, but inertialess as well!
    But the huge Dutchman's mind, while not mathematical, was even faster than his muscles, and not for nothing had he spent arduous weeks in inertialess tests of strength and skill. Hooking feet and legs around a convenient wheel he seized the enemy operator and jammed his helmeted head down between the base of the mount and the long, heavy steel lever by means of which it was turned. Then, throwing every ounce of his wonderful body into the effort, he braced both feet against the projector's grim barrel and heaved.
    The helmet flew apart like an eggshell, blood and brains gushed out in nauseous blobs, but the deltaray projector was so jammed that it would not soon again become a threat.
    Then vanBuskirk drew himself across the room toward the main control panel of the warship. Officer after officer he pushed aside, then reversed two double-throw switches, restoring gravity and inertia to the riddled cruiser.
    In the meantime the tide of battle had continued in favor of the Patrol. Few survivors though there were of the black-and-silver force, of the pirates there were still fewer, fighting now a desperate and hopeless defensive. But in this combat quarter was not, could not be thought of, and Sergeant vanBuskirk again waded into the fray. Four times more his horribly effective hybrid weapon descended like the hammer of Thor, cleaving and crushing its way through steel and flesh and bone. Then, striding to the control board, he manipulated switches and dials, then again spoke evenly to Kinnison.
    "You can hear me now, can't you? . . . . . All mopped up -- come and get the dope!”
    The specialists, headed by Master Technician LaVerne Thorndyke, had been waiting strainingly for that word for minutes. Now they literally flew at their tasks, in furious haste, but following rigidly and in perfect coordination a prearranged schedule.
    Every control and lead, every busbar and immaterial beam of force was traced and checked. Instruments and machines were dismantled, sealed mechanisms were ruthlessly torn apart by jacks or sliced open with cutting beams. And everywhere, every thing and every movement was being photographed, charted, and diagramed.
    "Getting the idea now, Kim," Thorndyke said finally, during a brief lull in his work.
    "A sweet system .
    . ..
    "Look at this!” a mechanic interrupted. "Here's a machine that's all shot to hell!”
    The shielding cover had been torn from a. monstrous fabrication of metal, apparently a motor or 'generator of an exceedingly complex type. The insulation of its coils and windings had fallen away in charred fragments, its copper had melted down in sluggish, viscous streams.
    "That's what we're looking for!” Thorndyke shouted. "Check those leads! Alpha!”
    "Seven-three-nine-four!” and the minutely careful study went on until.
    "That's enough, we've got everything we need now. Have you draftsmen and photographers got everything down solid?"
    "On the boards!” and "In the cans!” rapped out the two reports as one.
    "Then let's go!”
    "And