Re: Battlefield Earth Pdf Ebook Download
Macabeo Eastman
A towering masterwork of science fiction adventure and one of the best-selling science fiction novels of all time, L. Ron Hubbard s Battlefield Earth opens with breathtaking scope on an Earth dominated for 1,000 years by an alien invader and man is an endangered species. From the handful of surviving humans a courageous leader emerges Jonnie Goodboy Tyler, who challenges the invincible might of the alien Psychlo empire in a battle of epic scale, danger and intrigue with the fate of the Earth and of the universe in the tenuous balance. ...read more Format ebook
This title is now better remembered for being transformed into one of the worst B-movies in history. Don't blame the book, however, which is well regarded in sf circles. This 20th-anniversary edition offers the full text of the original. Galaxy Press, which launched this July, will reprint a number of Hubbard's books. If your existing copy looks as if it has been on the battlefield, this quality hardcover will make a nice replacement. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
It was as he suspected. He saw the splash asthe missile struck the water, and close to the destroyer,too. The saucy little war vessel had beenwaiting for this, and immediately fired a volleyfrom her guns. Doubtless small damage, if any,could be effected, for the Turks had built earthenbarricades to protect their batteries. It wouldserve as notice, however, that those aboard thedestroyer were not in the least daunted by thebombardment.
Jack had hardly made this remark when somethinghappened. Neither of the boys could fullydecide what the nature of the signal may havebeen; but they were sure one must have beengiven by the leader of the attacking Australians,far up on the hillside beyond the brown level,and the deep gullies that cut into the face of theearth here and there.
And now the sun was setting. It went downlike a great glowing ball of fire, as though inkeeping with the terrible work of the day. Itsomehow made Jack think of an interesting storyhe had read in a paper, concerning a famous battlefieldwhere thousands had fallen, and tellinghow, in the following year, the ground was amass of fire as innumerable red poppies bloomed.The superstitious peasants declared that theearth had refused to hold all the blood with whichit had been drenched on that awful day.
Amos involuntarily dropped down flat on theground, in which action he was immediatelycopied by the two others. They were none toosoon, for the earth fairly quaked under themighty explosion that followed. The shell hadburst very close by, and Jack was of the opinion[260]that the estimations of the British gunner musthave been remarkably accurate.
But Turks have ever been known to showbravery under fire, and Jack was not so verymuch surprised when there came a bellow fromthe rear that made the earth quiver. The biggun hidden in the brush and rocky spurs hadbeen fired, perhaps almost at random, to proveto the enemy that although betrayed by thatsearchlight from above the gunners were readyto die at their posts.
In this happy condition we will say good-byeto the American boys whose fortunes we havefollowed through the battlefields of war-strickenEurope. It may be our good fortune to meetthem again in the pages of some future volume;but for the present we must be patient and wait.
Its situation is charming. Here and there abald ridge or wooded hill, the name of whichyou do not yet know, is pushed or bristles upabove the undulating prairie-land, but there is notone really harsh feature in the landscape. In fullview off to the northwest, but softened by thegauzy haze of a midsummer's afternoon, thetowering bulk of the South Mountain, vanguardof the serried chain behind it, looms imposinglyup between Gettysburg and the Cumberland Valley,still beyond, in the west, as landmark for allthe country round, as well as for the great battlefieldnow spreading out its long leagues beforeyou; a monument more aged than the Pyramids,[12]which Napoleon, a supremely imaginative andmagnetic man himself, sought to invest with ahuman quality in the minds of his veterans,when he said to them, "Soldiers! from thesummits of yonder Pyramids forty ages beholdyou." In short, the whole scene is one of suchquiet pastoral beauty, the village itself with itscirclet of fields and farms so free from every hintof strife and carnage, that again and again we askourselves if it can be true that one of the greatestconflicts of modern times was lost and won here.
The strategic importance that Gettysburg suddenlyassumed during Lee's invasion ofPennsylvania, in July, 1863, first demandsa little of our attention. Yet it seems certainthat neither Meade nor Lee had thought ofit as a possible battle-ground until accident thrustit upon them. At his first setting out on thiscampaign Lee had not been able to say, with themap before him, "I will fight a battle either inthis or that place," because he had marched nottoward, but away from, his adversary, and, so faras can be known, without choosing beforehand aposition where Meade would have to come andattack him. For his part, so long as Meade wasonly following Lee about, the Union general cannotbe said to have had much voice in the matter.It was Lee who was really directing Meade'smarch. True enough, Meade did select a battlefield,but not here, at Gettysburg; nor do weknow, nor would it be useful to inquire, whether[14]Lee could have been induced to fight just whereMeade wanted him to. As Lee fought at Gettysburgonly because he was struck, it is probablybeyond any man's power to say that if this hadnot happened, as it did, Lee would have marchedon toward Baltimore, knowing that Meade's armylay intrenched in his path. There is ahomely maxim running to the effectthat you can lead a horse to water,but cannot make him drink. The two generals,therefore, merely launched their columns out hitor miss, like men playing at blind-man's-buff.
One other conflict remains to be noticed. Theperil menacing his left had induced Meade tonearly strip Culp's Hill of its defenders. All ofthe Twelfth Corps, which, it will be remembered,held Culp's Hill and its approaches, had beenhurried over to the left, except one brigade, thusabandoning the rude but substantial breastworksthat these troops had raised with felled trees, earth,or loose stones, against an attack. Asyet all seemed quiet on this side; butwhen, shortly after sunset, Ewell's corps tardilybegan the part assigned it by pouring out of thewoods in which it had lain concealed, to begin afurious assault upon Culp's Hill, his men foundnothing before them except the undefended worksjust spoken of on that part of the hill borderingupon Rock Creek. Finding the doorstanding open, as it were, they hadonly to walk in and take possession.
While this was happening at Culp's Hill, the[128]rest of Early's Confederate division came on inthe early twilight to the assault of Cemetery Hill.The day had worn itself out, the west only gloweda sullen red upon the battlefield. Early's duskylines could scarce be made out exceptby the flashes of musketry seen hereand there. One of his brigades struck the sidenearest Culp's Hill (the gap side), where theUnion infantry were kneeling behind stone walls,waiting with guns cocked for them to get upnearer; the other brigade, with a third in reserve,marched on the right of the first. Thirty oddguns flamed and thundered upon them from theCemetery. The hillside was lighted up by flashesof musketry. It was one incessant blaze androar. The left brigade was mowed down inswaths, and had to give way; but that on theright forced its way through the ranks of theinfantry, swarmed up around the guns that weredealing death among them, and began a hand-to-handfight with the artillery-men, in which menwere beaten to death with handspikes and rammers.
Be that as it may, the order was given for his[137]artillery to open. Longstreet had massed seventy-fiveguns in one battery, Hill sixty-three, andEwell enough more to bring the number up toone hundred and fifty in all. At precisely oneo'clock the signal guns were fired.Before their echoes died away thewhole line of Confederate batteries was blazinglike a volcano. There seemed to be but one flashand one report, and their simultaneous discharges,pealing out deafening salvos, went rolling androlling on through the valleys, and echoingamong the hills, in one mighty volume of sound,vying with the loudest thunder. It was sublimelygrand, sublimely terrifying. Without amoment's warning, as if the heavens above hadopened and the earth below yawned beneath theirfeet, the Union soldiers found themselves in themidst of the pitiless storm. A tornado of shotand shell burst upon Cemetery Hill, tearingthe air, rending the rocks, plowing up theground, and dealing death on all sides atonce.
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