Out of the DARK NEBULA
By MILTON L. COE
Five thousand green space-cadets, manning
the mighty Albion on their shake-down cruise,
heard that grim message from HQ: "War with
Xantu! Return immediately to Terra Base!"
Which posed a problem ... for lurking in
starry battleground, somewhere between Earth
and the doom-ship, was half the Xantu fleet!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories May 1951.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The bulkheads of the mighty battleship rocked with the song wellingfrom five thousand throats. As the young, eager voices swelled intothe chorus of "The Spaceman's Hymn," Vice-Admiral Jack Harrigan felt alump grow in his own throat. Captain Mike O'Brien, short, muscular anddefinitely Irish, joined the admiral at the balcony hatch; togetherthey looked down upon the huge ship's auditorium.
"It's a long, long way to the Milky Way ..." the chorus rose, fell,faded and died.
Harrigan nodded to O'Brien and the two men matched strides down thepassageway.
"Something on your mind, Jack?" O'Brien asked.
"Oh, I don't know, Mike. I just got to thinking about the old days,I guess, hearing those kids singing. The Force is all glory to them;color, ceremony, power, flitting around the Galaxy like this. Creamof the crop, they are, and every last one of them fought to get inthe Force. But I wonder how they'd face up to the other side of thisbusiness?"
"Combat?" O'Brien screwed up his face.
"Yeh boy. Combat like we saw, with our backs to the wall andnine-tenths of the Galaxy howling for our heart's blood. Wonder ifthey'd change their minds about the force—" he jerked his thumb backtowards the auditorium—"if it came again?"
"Dunno." Mike shrugged. "Maybe old Fitzsimmons wondered about us thesame way when we went on our shake-down cruise. We were a sad bunch,I'll admit. But we didn't pan out too bad, did we Jack?"
The two officers had reached the observation deck. The Milky Waystretched a hazy filament across the heavens. Harrigan drew a longbreath, hooked his thumbs in his belt and smiled.
"No, Mike, not bad at all, if I do say so. It was rugged while we weregoing through it, I suppose. But things have been quiet for so longnow ... damn it, we did have fun, didn't we Mike?"
Mike grinned crookedly. "Fun is right. Remember the time ShortyMichaels caught those two Xantu ships flat-footed behind the Coal Sack?"
"Yeah. Blew 'em to Hell and back and found out later they were the twostrongest ships in the Xantu fleet. If they had seen him first ...brother, he shook for a week after they told him."
Mike roared with laughter. "Battle wagons, and Shorty with a destroyer."
"And how about that time the gang of Zith stinkers ambushed us onSirius V.... Were they surprised when their water-pistols didn't killus! They didn't know that water isn't quite as fatal to a Terran as itis to a Zith."
"Yeah," O'Brien said; "and I'll never forget the smile on Cap Martin'sface as he sprayed 'em with the ship's fire hose."
"Well," the admiral said, sobering, "if you'd seen the pitiful remainsin their slave camps on Sirius VII, the way Cap and I did...." He shookhis head slowly. "We should have bounced a couple Duodec bombs offtheir home planet. And on Xantu too. Finished the job right."
The captain gazed down at his shoes. "We might get the chance yet. Anynews lately?"
"Not much. Just the usual rumblings from the Dark Nebulas. But I agreewith HQ that the Xantu are at the bottom of it, without a doubt. Younever know when those varmints are going to start trouble. That's thereason fo