Outlaw World by Edmond Hamilton

Book Details

Outlaw World – On the trail of malevolent space pirates, Captain Future (Curt Newton) and the Futuremen combat the evil machinations of the Uranian Ru Ghur, who plans the total destruction of the Universe! This Captain Future novel by Edmond Hamilton (1904-1977) is complete with all of the 23 original illustrations as published in 1946.

Chapter I Radium Raiders
Chapter II Warning from Space
Chapter III Into Dreams
Chapter IV Surprise Attack
Chapter V Space Trail to Danger
Chapter VI In the Moon Forest
Chapter VII On the Pirate Asteroid
Chapter VIII Disastrous Discovery
Chapter IX World of the Cave-Apes
Chapter X Planetoid Trap
Chapter XI Catastrophe from the Sky
Chapter XII The Flare in the Void
Chapter XIII In the Meteor Swarm
Chapter XIV Secret of Mars
Chapter XV Into Fiery Peril
Chapter XVI Outlaw World
Chapter XVII In the Solar Satellite
Chapter XVIII Citadel of Evil
Chapter XIX Defeat
Chapter XX Dark Battle”

Outlaw World has 23 illustrations

Files:

1. OutlawWorld.epub

Outlaw World is also available on Barnes & Noble and Amazon

Outlaw World

Chapter I

Radium Raiders

DANGER was like a physical presence in the Orion, as the old space-freighter plodded through the lonely void. The ship was running dark, even its rocket-tubes baffled so that no betraying flare of flame would mark its course as it droned on the long voyage from Saturn toward Earth. In his cubby, the telaudio operator, a dark-haired, clear-eyed, tanned young Earthman, alertly listened at his instruments.

“Planet Patrol calling all ships between Saturn and Jupiter,” issued a sharp voice from the loud-speaker.

The operator made no attempt to answer. He had strict orders to maintain telaudio silence.

“Urgent warning!” continued the sharp voice. “Unidentified cruisers, believed radium raiders, sighted entering your sector.”

As the operator jumped to his feet he heard a shrill shout from the lookout man forward.

“Four ships aft of our port beam, pulling up fast!”

The telaudio man leaped for the door, plunged for the bridge-room.

Captain Greeley, the grizzled old Earthman who was master of the Orion, was already there. He was peering through the small round lens-window of the aft tele-viewer, a powerful telescopic instrument.

The window was an eye peering into space, a dark-abyss hung with the jeweled tapestry of the stars. Saturn was a yellow spark astern. Jupiter lay ahead, and beyond it the asteroid zone glinted against the flaring little Sun.

The telescopic window showed what the unaided eye could not see—four long, slim cruisers, running dark, pursuing the Orion. The stubby muzzles of heavy atom-guns that protruded from the sides of the cruisers were clearly recognizable.

“They aren’t Patrol ships, and that means they’re pirates!” exclaimed the Captain. “Look at those guns!”

“The Patrol just flashed warning’ that radium raiders are operating in this sector, sir!” rapidly reported the telaudio operator.

“Full speed on all cycs!” Captain Greely shouted to the pilot.

The throbbing of the Cyclotrons down in the lowest deck instantly intensified to a roar. The old freighter quivered to the increased thrust of power from its stern rocket-tubes.

“Radium raiders?” the Venusian second officer was repeating, thunderstruck. “But how could they know we’ve got two tons of refined radium ores abroad? We took off from Saturn secretly!”

“A lot of other radium ships have taken off just as secretly, and those devils found them,” gritted the captain. He swung toward his telaudio operator. “Call the Patrol and tell them we’re being chased. There’s no use maintaining silence now!”

AS THE young operator raced back, his own mind was grappling with the mystery.

“How could they have known our cargo and course? And where did they come from?”

The radium raiders who had first appeared a month before were the enigma of the Solar System. In bands of up to a half-dozen cruisers, they pounced upon and looted unarmed freighters, then disappeared as magically as they came.

Space pirates were no new thing, to the System. There were always some corsairs infesting the outlaw asteroids or the wilder moons of the outer planets. But these radium raiders were different from any other pirates ever before encountered.

They sought only radium, the most valuable substance in the System, the element necessary for so many industrial and scientific power projects. Much radium was mined on Saturn and Uranus, and transported to the inner planets. The raiders had cut off almost every such shipment. No matter how secretly a radium ship took off, they seemed to have knowledge of its movements.

Greatest mystery of all was the raiders’ origin. They did not come from any known part of the System. That had been established by Patrol searches. They seemed to enter the System from above the planetary plane, and to drive up out of it after each foray.

Did they come from some interstellar lair far across deep space? Or were they from another dimension entirely? These, and wilder surmises were afoot.

“Freighter Orion to all stations and squadrons of the Planet Patrol!” shouted the young operator into his microphone. “Being pursued between Saturn and Jupiter by radium raiders!”

There came a flash of brilliant light outside the windows of the speeding ship, a glare that lit up all space for a second.

“They’re within range!” a yell rang through the ship.

The operator glanced swiftly through the port-hole and glimpsed a scene to bring a chill to the stoutest heart.

The four black cruisers, rapidly overtaking the fleeing freighter, were using their heavy atom-guns.

He glimpsed a shower of atom-shells rushing toward them. Then another blinding blaze of light, a quivering shock through the ship, and the roar of an explosion,

“We’re hit!” yelled the Venusian mate. “Caught our stern, and half the tube back-blasted!”

The explosion had flung the telaudio operator to the floor. He heard rending metal, the shriek of escaping air, the clang-clang of automatic bulkheads closing to prevent its escape.

The Orion’s stern rocket-tubes had been ripped into junk, and a back-blast along the power pipes had exploded the cyclotrons.

“We’ve been crippled and are about to be boarded!” the operator shouted into the microphone as he scrambled to his feet. “Our space position as follows—”

Excerpt From: Edmond Hamilton. “Outlaw World.”