Blaster

“ The lean, well muscled, trim figure of the Queen's commander gave the impression of hard bitten force held in check by will control, just as his face under its thick layer of space burn was that of an adventurer accustomed to make split second decisions—an estimate underlined by that seam of blaster burn across one flat cheek. ”

“ On the frontier the real conflict raged, fought with all the weapons of treachery and an arsenal of highly refined atomic weapons—the blaster which could tear a man into component elements, and the L-bombs that were capable of turning a young sun into a nova. ”

“ He swiveled his central section, redirecting the blaster at a boulder that lay between him and the needle and destroying it in a fiery eruption of light and heat and pulverizing forces.
Fuming, he paced forward, stopped and paced back again. He had seen the audacious creatures who were bold enough to invade His Realm! But He had been able to do nothing about them. For at that moment the irresistible compulsion of function had taken over and He could only orient and transmit all the data from his master tape. ”

“ Tom, Roger, and Astro had now been moved inside the hangar itself, to stand guard over the only three doors in the cavernous structure. They were armed with powerful heat blasters. These rifles were different from the paralo-ray guns they had used previously. A beam of light from the ray guns would only paralyze a human being, while the blaster destroyed anything it touched, burning it to a crisp. ”

“ You carry a blaster, it's steel. Disintegrator, too. Wear a spacesuit, you also get broiled. Go near a radio, same thing. Man, it scares you: hope the chief knows what he's doing."
"He knows," my good new friend George said, and because I figured they had heard enough for now of my terribly selective yet horribly universal weapon, I marched off my pinnacle and made my way back over the rubble toward our dome. I chuckled softly to myself. Clair and Gramps had doubtlessly heard of my new weapon via their intercoms, and I thought they'd be mightily pleased. ”

“ Now listen. You stay by your blaster and keep your eyes and your ears open. I'm coming over to see if I can locate the 'copter. If I do locate it I'll throw a flare under it, and if they try to rise, you burn them. If they don't try to rise and we can take them alive, so much the better. I'd like to see a real live ghoul. But otherwise, you burn them! If we lose another car-corpse, we'll all be out on our ears."
"All right," Kester said. The screen went blank.
Descending the tower ladder, I wondered what kind of a guard detail I had. Last night, Betz's negligence had cost me a Cadillac. ”

“ They poured out through the airlock and down the ramp, there to form in columns that marched forward as still more Gerns hurried down the ramp behind them. The searchlights gleamed on their battle helmets and on the blades of the bayonets affixed to their rifle-like long range blasters. Hand blasters and grenades hung from their belts, together with stubby flame guns. ”

“ Blekeke frowned and pointed the blaster at my chest. "Please. So fast not so. Go back corner, please."
I obediently returned to the corner and sat down. It had been worth a try.
The Martian lowered the weapon and smiled. "You too brave. I not like kill. But pfoof for loop-hole. All plugged. Looking what front-door camera see. Polices here now."
He pushed the button on the wall.
A police auto was screeching to a halt in the driveway before the big house, and a half-dozen uniformed men, armed with deadly blasters, were piling out. Another car was whipping around the final curve. ”

“ Eckert methodically knocked the cold ashes out of his pipe and added more tobacco. "Easy. Despite what you read in story books, no civilization lives simply, governs itself simply, and yet possesses 'super-blasters.' The sword-and-blaster combination just doesn't exist. Any weapon above the level of bows and arrows or knives is the product of a well advanced technology. ”

“ A shoulder weapon, powered by a small fusion reactor pack, which emits a plasma beam. Since their power packs are larger than those of a hand-held blaster, they are correspondingly either more powerful or more long-lasting, depending on the operator's preference. ”

“ Some defect in the fuse, or some injury done to it, may cause it to smoulder for a long time, and the blaster, thinking the shot has missed, approaches the fuse to see the effects produced by the shots that have fired. The defective portion of the fuse having burned through, the train again starts, and the explosion takes place, probably with fatal consequences. Thus missed shots are not only a cause of long delays, but are sources of great danger. Accidents may occur also from premature explosion. ”

“ He tried to visualize the computing circuits needed for the operation of its tracking mechanism alone. "There just isn't room for the electronics. You'd need a computer as big as the one at camp headquarters."
In the distance the sky blazed as a blaster roared in the jungle. Then Alan heard the approaching robot, crunching and snapping its way through the undergrowth like an onrushing forest fire. He froze. "Good Lord! They communicate with each other! The one I jammed must be calling others to help." ”

“ Even ground battles left few, since hand-held blasters at full power or molecular disruptors literally vaporized unarmored targets, and if enough of them overloaded an armored target's screen generator, the resulting explosion had the same practical effect. ”

“ But where were they getting it to broadcast? Only an infinite source of supply could do the job.
Paralyzed, he watched the battle screen. He was aware of the miatron blasters falling silent, one after another, as the straining driver atomics were diverted to hold the shield. Their sister Galactic's blasters had all fallen silent as all the power of her own huge drivers was shunted into the shield generators. Their own shield was trembling and shuddering under the inconceivable impact of the energies that surged at it from the Delban. ”

“ Ghosties, ghoulies, unseen terrors, warlocks, witches, succubi, and baneful doom are all OK by me, but anti-gravs, blasters, and characters that have to learn all over again how to build a fire because they are so super-efficient they never knew how—Uh uh! ”

“ Two of the armed robots who had walked with the guards took up a position twenty feet in front of them, blasters in their metal hands. The robots who had chained them stepped to one side, away from the line of fire. The leader of the guards lifted his arm to look at his watch and said something to the robots. The robots lifted their blasters at the words and leveled them, one aimed at Virginia's heart and one at Bob's. ”

“ Jorgenson swore impartially at all of them and turned the shocker-field back on. He plugged in a capacity circuit which would turn on warning sirens if anything like a steam-driven copter passed or hovered over the trading-post. He put blasters in handy positions. The Thrid used only spears, knives and scimitars. Blasters would defend the post against a multitude. ”

“ He blasted, then, to match the inert velocity of the smaller craft. As his ship crept toward the other he reached out both telepathically—he could neither speak nor hear—and with a spy-ray, to determine the most feasible method of taking over this godsend.
Bipeds! Peculiar little beasts—repulsive. Only two arms and two eyes—only one head. Weak, soft, fragile, but they might have weapons. No, no weapons—good! ”

“ The iron which thus traversed the head, is known with blasters as a "tamping iron," is round and rendered comparatively smooth by use, and is three feet seven inches in length, one and one-fourth inches in its largest diameter, and weighs thirteen and one-fourth pounds. The end which entered first is pointed, the taper being about twelve inches long, and the diameter of the point one-fourth of an inch.
The patient was thrown upon his back by the explosion, and gave a few convulsive motions of the extremities, but spoke in a few minutes. ”

“ It is all color and noise—unearthly colors, unearthly noises. I stand at the edge of an Inferno. The heavens streak with a sulphurous green, and the earth is scarred with flame. I see the rockets swishing up from the trenches, breaking with the weird [124] light that would reveal any enemy creeping up, and falling in a shower of sparks, like shooting stars. It gives a strange confirmation of an old saying that when a star falls some one dies.
I see the steady, streaming, reddish line of rifle fire and the yellow flash of shells. I hear their fierce, harsh croaking and their deafening boom. ”

“ But if I can find a mirror that will turn back all rays, a wall from which all projectiles will rebound, a shield against all the many forces of Nature and of man—then, Monsieur, I have the perfect defense and the perfect weapon!
"See this little mirror in my hand. I flash in your eyes a beam of light—so. You are blinded, no? And if this is not light, but a ray of death that you have hurled against my mirror, it kills you—is it not so? If it is a bullet that you shoot at me, it recoils and strikes you down. If it is a bomb, it is thrown back into your trenches, to kill your men. ”

“ One sees and one feels the fragments passing close to one's head with their hiss of red-hot iron plunged in water. The blast of one explosion so burns my hands that I let my rifle fall. I pick it up again, reeling, and set off in the tawny-gleaming tempest with lowered head, lashed by spirits of dust and soot in a crushing downpour like volcanic lava. The stridor of the bursting shells hurts your ears, beats you on the neck, goes through your temples, and you cannot endure it without a cry. The gusts of death drive us on, lift us up, rock us to and fro. We leap, and do not know whither we go. ”

“ In the blaze of the gun I caught a glimpse of a great shaggy mass, something with rough and bristling hair of a withered grey colour, fading away to white in its lower parts, the huge body supported upon short, thick, curving legs. I had just that glance, and then I heard the rattle of the stones as the creature tore down into its burrow. In an instant, with a triumphant revulsion of feeling, I had cast my fears to the wind, and uncovering my powerful lantern, with my rifle in my hand, I sprang down from my rock and rushed after the monster down the old Roman shaft. ”

“ I passed over the yards at about 1,000 feet only, and loosed all my bombs over the place. The whole way down I was under fire, two anti-aircraft in the yard, guns from the forts on either side, rifle fire, mitrailleuse or machine guns, and, most weird of all, great bunches (15 to 20) of what looked like green rockets, but I think they were flaming bullets. The excitement of the moment was terrific. I have never travelled so fast before in my life. ”

“ The blazing, burning light filled all the room with a glare more terrible than the lightning. He recovered his sight, and saw Nemesis standing above him, revolver in hand, and with a torch of magnesium wire blazing in horrid flames above his head. ”

“ Hideous night, pierced with flame, serried with a rocket's gleaming train, weird with bursting bombs [159] that light the glistening fields a grayish green; awful night, shaking to the booming of heavy guns, blotched with the red of splitting shells, quivering insanely to a machine gun's steady beat; night of death, with the wounded turning white, waiting for the hours just before the dawn when the firing stops and their comrades may be spared to carry them back; with the field of the soaked dead, a nightmare of lumpy things, seen hellishly in the rocket's glow. ”

“ A flying rifle-shot from a lightning express at a distant swallow would have more chance of success. If you missed the mark, the projectile would wheel round the planet, and either become its satellite or return towards the earth like that of Jules Verne in his fascinating romance. ”

“ And all the time, in a monotony of madness, the avalanche of fire and iron goes on; shrapnel with its whistling explosion and its overcharged heart of furious metal and the great percussion shells, whose thunder is that of the railway engine which crashes suddenly into a wall, the thunder of loaded rails or steel beams, toppling down a declivity. The air is now glutted and viewless, it is crossed and recrossed by heavy blasts, and the murder of the earth continues all around, deeply and more deeply, to the limit of completion.
There are even other guns which now join in—they are ours. ”

“ Our own fire never diminished, and I doubt if twenty-five per cent of our shots went wild. It had never been given me to see such deadly accuracy of aim, and it seemed as though a little figure on one of the craft dropped at the explosion of each bullet, while the banners and upper works dissolved in spurts of flame as the irresistible projectiles of our warriors mowed through them. ”

“ The black smoke, interfulgent with tortuous tongues of lurid fire, rolled in immense volumes over her!—the red flames darted up her masts, along the spars and rigging, and gushed in swirling sheets from her ports and bulwarks, while in their fierce gleams, the billows that ramped and raved about her, glowed like a huge seething cauldron of molten iron, and the gloomy clouds that lowered above were tinged in their ragged borders, as with blood. Occasionally the jarring thunder of her cannon, as they became heated to explosion, announced to us the progress of the insidious destroyer. ”

“ A burst of flame rose toward the skies with an explosion like that of a hundred cannon; the air burned, ignited by flaming embers, then the frightful lightning disappeared, the brands sank, one after another, into the abyss, where they were extinguished, and save for a slight vibration in the air, after a few minutes had elapsed one would have thought that nothing had happened. ”