Chapter XI
The Catastrophe at Jupiter
As soon as the Sirian fleets had broken down the first line of defence of the Anglo-Saxons in the depths of space, they steered for the orbit of Neptune. While they were cruising about in these regions, they fell in with the outposts of the second line of defence, and vigorous fighting soon commenced. More ships joined in, until the combat extended over a very wide area. But the main body of the enemy kept hovering about in the rear, invisible to the Anglo-Saxons, and sending aid to their own fleets whenever it was required. Sometimes the tide of battle rolled almost within the atmosphere of Neptune, and the affrighted inhabitants could see the cannon blaze in the skies, while the air was shaken by deafening reports. Many disabled ships, with their antigravitation apparatus broken, sank lower and lower, until they, with their helpless crew and magazine of explosives, fell crashing down into the atmosphere of Neptune, and blew up with an explosion that desolated the ground for a mile around. Dismounted guns, pieces of metal wrenched off battleships, and wandering projectiles fell down on to the planet like thunderbolts, crashing through the trees and houses as if they had been made of paper.
Occasionally the Sirian war-ships hovered over Neptune, quite out of sight during the daytime, and then, under cover of the night, they were let down close to a river or lake, and fresh supplies of water pumped up, while the engineers repaired the damage done to the outside. Then, as soon as it began to get light, they rose up into the air, and were out of sight in a few moments. Some were let down into the heart of dense woods, and remained on the ground for some days repairing the more serious wounds they had received; others, more daring, took to plundering, and sailed away with their holds full of fresh provisions. This was soon noticed by the inhabitants of Neptune, and the Home Fleet was scattered all over the planet to search out and suppress the marauders. Soon the solitary woodlands and barren mountains rang with the roar of cannon and the shouts of the combatants. Great battleships lay among the trees or behind projecting rocks, firing shells at one another, that tore up giant trees by their roots and hurled them over the forest, or spattered jagged rocks far and wide. Then at night the searchlights shone among the trees like mimic suns, while the waves of Ednogen force flowed hither and thither, burning up trees and melting rocks like wax. But there were no hand-to-hand combats between the crews; they all preferred to keep behind their metal walls.
Meanwhile, fighting was continued with undiminished vigour in the space outside. The guns kept on belching forth flames and smoke day and night without intermission. Hundreds of ships were destroyed, but more kept on coming up from the reserves to take their places. There was much manœuvring in Neptune's shadow. Whole lines of battleships lay calmly waiting in the darkness with their lights extinguished, and then they would paralyze with their radiant forces any unwary ships that came within their reach, and tear them to pieces bit by bit. But the Anglo-Saxons were terribly outnumbered again; although fighting bravely, they were slowly but surely getting the worst of the fight.
The advance fleet of the Sirians had now proceeded as far as Jupiter. Here it was met by an Anglo-Saxon fleet, and after several desultory combats a terrible battle commenced. For days the ships chased one another round the planet and between the moons, throwing down a continual shower of wreckage and shot on to the ground below. Far in the rear the admirals of both fleets watched the progress of the fight, directing the movements of the vessels and carefully devising combinations of force which might lead their own ships to victory. For hour after hour the perspiring and weary gunners stood at their guns until they were relieved by others and enabled to retire to rest. But sleep was impossible as long as the strife lasted, for the roar of artillery resounded from end to end of every ship. Wearied, but not conquered, the gunners rose from their beds when their turn came, and returned to their posts ready to conquer or die. But masterly as were the tactics of the Anglo-Saxon admiral, he was gradually being driven into a death-trap by the skilful strategy of the Sirians and their numerically superior forces. Nearly all of his fleet had become collected together between two of Jupiter's moons, and around them as far as the eye could reach lay the Sirian ships vomiting forth flames and smoke and gradually drawing a network of invisible forces around the devoted fleet. Several ships tried to break through, but directly they reached the invisible barrier their machinery was paralyzed, and they lay in space like helpless logs unable to move. On either side were the discs of the two moons clearly shining. Behind them was Jupiter, with its continents and seas clearly marked, but it was impossible to reach either without destroying the blockading vessels or breaking their formation. The Anglo-Saxon admiral was fighting with his hands tied behind his back, for he could not move beyond the charmed line. So he drew up his vessels into the form of a hollow sphere and trusted to the strength of his guns. Both parties fought with desperate energy—the Sirians to keep their prestige of victory, the Anglo-Saxons to ward off defeat and save their lives. The Anglo-Saxon formation soon became a mass of flame. Wave after wave of Ednogen was sent rolling through space, followed by showers of shot and shell. Neither side could use torpedo-boats now on account of the waves of Ednogen, for they would have burnt up smaller craft in a moment. There were blinding sheets of light, columns of smoke, and tongues of flame. The Sirian ships quivered and rolled backwards and forwards. The strain was terrific. Wave met wave; crests of flame leapt up as they dashed together. Sometimes it seemed almost as if the Sirian formation must break up, but it opened out more and relieved some of the strain. Intense anxiety was felt on board all the ships. The gunners redoubled their efforts, and fired so quickly that many of the guns were damaged by the heat.
Soon a signal flashed from the admiral's ship in the centre of the sphere. Simultaneously every captain pulled over the starting lever of his ship, and the great sphere spread in all directions, hurling itself on to the enemy. But the latter was on the alert. Some ships sprang through the invisible circle and went plunging into the space beyond. Some charged the opposing ships broadside and pushed them far away, rending and tearing up their armour sheathing. But others were beaten back by the invisible force, and rolled over and over, pitching and tossing, to their former positions, while the gunners held on to whatever they could lay hold of to avoid having their brains dashed out against the guns.
But the charmed circle was broken at last. The ships that had got through quickly reversed their engines, and came charging back on to the Sirians. The shock was awful. Numbers of ships were pierced right through by the rams and converted into hopeless wrecks; others had just time to turn round a little so that they received the rams on their least vulnerable parts; but in spite of this they were dreadfully mutilated. By this successful charge the numbers of the two contending fleets were made very nearly equal.
The battle area had now become a scene of great confusion. The space around the ships was filled with smoke and wreckage. The two fleets were so mixed up together that organized fighting became impossible. The ships wandered about until they found an enemy and then fought with him hand-to-hand.
It was about this time that Providence prepared a retribution that was to fall upon both parties alike and punish them for their impious daring and unbridled passions. They had been recklessly letting loose through space, for the purpose of mutual destruction, giant forces which should have been used for better purposes. The admirals never guessed that the results of the great battle which had taken place months before in the depths of space would be likely to pursue them for hundreds of thousands of miles, and find them out when they were fighting within the bounds of the Solar System.
Yet such was the case. The giant forces which had been let loose on that occasion were not exhausted in the battle area. They interacted upon one another until a vast vacuum, a space absolutely devoid of ether, was formed, and this slowly travelled through space as a great wave. It sped on and on without anyone being aware of its existence or the destruction it might occasion. It passed through the orbit of Neptune and rolled on until it came to Jupiter. Then it passed over the two moons between which the Anglo-Saxon and Sirian fleets were contending in deadly combat. The result of the vacuum was that the two moons were driven towards one another by a colossal force. Most of the officers and crews were suddenly startled by observing that the two discs on either side of them, which had hitherto been so small, were rapidly getting larger. Nobody could make out what was happening; some thought it was merely an optical illusion. But the discs rapidly grew in size from minute to minute, until they covered almost half of the heavens.
Then a blind, unreasoning fear seized on every man in both fleets. They stopped fighting and looked through the windows in terror at the ever-increasing moons. Many of the men burst open the air-tight doors and rushed all over the ships in a state of distraction. The captains tugged at the starting levers with a blind desire to flee anywhere away from the unknown danger. The propellers revolved, but they did not move the ships an inch, on account of the vacuum. Every ship lay helpless like a log, moving along under the impulse of the momentum it had already acquired.
All discipline between the decks was soon at an end. The gunners abandoned their guns and stared with fascinated gaze at the great mass on to which they appeared to be falling, shrieking out that they would all be destroyed. The officers tried to restore order, but no one listened to them. The panic was universal.
Larger and larger grew the moons and brighter the light. Now they occupied the whole of the heavens; there was nothing to be seen but mountain and forest rapidly expanding and spreading out before their eyes. The crews howled with terror, but the masses rushed on, irresistible, relentless. The outlying ships were caught up on the rocks and pressed on until they dashed against the others. Then, in a second of time, before anyone could move or speak, the two moons met with a fearful crash. Every ship was ground up, pressed flat, and destroyed. Mountains and hills were broken off and ground to powder; forests of trees were snapped off and torn to matchwood. The heat generated by the impact was intense. Lakes and rivers were immediately evaporated; but the grinding, crushing, and splitting still continued. Mountains melted and were converted into incandescent vapour; whole countries were torn off and went bounding against one another, crashing and smashing, until they, too, were vaporized. There was a chaos of rocks, mountains, stones, and dust shaking, clashing, and rebounding. A cloud of vapour hung around and grew until it reached Jupiter, throwing a fierce heat and light all over the planet, and even lighting up the distant earth and Neptune. And so in a moment the two great fleets had been wiped out; not a ship escaped to tell the tale.
The damage done to Jupiter was immense. For hours a perfect tempest of half-melted rocks, jagged hills, and lumps of liquid metal fell on to it, committing frightful havoc. The great cloud of luminous vapour slowly rotated round it, withering the foliage of the trees, drying up the rivers, and scorching the face of the land. Men and women perished by thousands. They lay panting on the ground or hiding in cellars and caves while the great fire-cloud moved slowly over their heads, burning, killing, and destroying. Then it vanished for a while, and they went about their ordinary occupations till it rose again above the horizon ready to burn afresh. For weeks this continued, while the waters were evaporated and the ground was burnt with the frightful heat. But at last the excessive heat was dissipated, and the cloud gradually contracted, only giving out a mild warmth. The times and tides of Jupiter, however, were altogether set wrong by the catastrophe, and the orbit of the planet itself was altered by the displacement of the two moons. The headquarters of the Anglo-Saxon fleet that had been established there had to be removed to Mars.
Telegraphic accounts of what had occurred were sent as soon as possible to the other planets, but no one was aware of the fate of the two contending fleets. In fact, no one ever knew what had happened to them; it was nothing in those days for whole fleets to vanish in a single battle without leaving a vessel to tell the tale.
Fighting still went on in the regions between Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars; but the Anglo-Saxons nearly always got the worst of it, they were so heavily outnumbered. The admirals often gazed with despair upon the distant earth shining like a great star, as they recognised their inability to maintain the second line of defence much longer. Many a brave commander standing in his ship riddled by shot sighed for some means to destroy the daring ships that were collecting nearer and nearer about the earth, which he was bound to defend. They ought to have been at Kairet by this time had there been enough ships, and here they were being daily driven back nearer to London. But still they fought on and on, fiercely, dauntlessly. They must keep away the enemy at any sacrifice.
The strategy employed by the Sirian Admiral-in-Chief was exquisite. Day by day he kept on destroying and hemming in the Anglo-Saxons, driving them exactly where he wanted them to go. Oh, why had they been so slack in their preparations? Such was the lamentation uttered by hundreds of captains when they began to recognise their own powerlessness to turn away those terrible fleets.