Revenge of the Vera
By HENRY HASSE
The unarmed freighter Vera was plowing through
space to meet the deadliest pirate of the
Void—rocketing into battle against a fighting
ship even the Space Patrol could not vanquish.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Fall 1943.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The man seemed too big for the single, cushioned seat of the tiny spacecruiser. But he did not remain in the seat long, and when he movedit was with a swift surety that belied his bulk. He stepped over tothe visipanel, peered into it and saw only a few pinpoints of stars.His eyes, as icy as those stars, narrowed until they, too, were butpinpoints. He grasped the directional finder and swung it in eccentricparabolas across all the heavens before him. The star pinpoints swungto and fro, in and out of the visipanel ... and then he saw it.
A vague, darker shape against the blackness, blotting out a few of thestars. Lucky! he thought, as he leaped back to the controls to changedirection. Lucky to find it before the Earth Patrol got there. The newshad already gone out. But he did not exult; his lips tightened into athin hard line, and his throat tightened too, with the foreboding thatcrowded out all hope.
As he drew swiftly nearer, he could see the huge luxury linerhelplessly drifting. He could see the black ragged hole in the hull. Hecould see the name on the prow, Martian Princess. He could see otherthings which he didn't want to see, which he didn't want to approachbut knew he must. Numerous tiny white-faced things, staring and bloatedand reflecting the leprous sunlight....
The tiny cruiser clanged against the larger bulk, and her magniplatesheld. The man was already in space-suit. With a trembling hand hebrushed back his blonde hair, then pulled down the Crystyte-frontedhelmet. He stepped out into space.
He did not immediately board the liner. Instead he moved among thescores of drifting corpses, using a propulsion pistol. He pulled eachcorpse to him, stared searchingly into its face, then thrust it awaywith a shudder. Before he had half finished he was sick; but he felthope surging in him again, for he had not yet found what he was lookingfor. Perhaps, after all ... somehow ... she had not taken thisliner....
He boarded it, moved along the corridors and into the staterooms. Butall was a shambles. The pirates had struck as usual: sudden, ruthlesslyramming; had smashed completely through this liner like an eggshell!He saw corpses half encased in spacesuits, but it had been a futileeffort. Many of the passengers had holes blasted through them, tinypencil-thin holes of concentrated atom-blasts at close range, muteevidence of the pirates' deadly work. The once gorgeous salons werestripped of the silks and fineries. Staterooms thoroughly looted. Eventhe corpses stripped of all personal jewelry and other finery.
The grim-faced young man, the only moving and living thing aboard,noticed all this but secondarily. His heart was pounding with a newlyrising hope. For in none of the staterooms had he found her.
He moved through the ragged gap and out the other side of the ship.More drifting corpses, hugging the hull because of the slight gravity.Methodically he moved among them, pulling them around, thrusting themaway.
And then—one he did not thrust away. His face beneath the helmetstared, and became suddenly anguished. He hugged the body tightly to