s they moved.

The village chieftain called his advisers together to ponder the
situation. What should they do with these strange things? What were the
invaders' intentions?

Obviously, the things must be hostile. Therefore, there were only two
courses open--fight or flee. The chieftain and his men decided to fight.
It would have been a good thing if there had only been some Imperial
troops in the vicinity, but all the troops were farther south, where a
civil war was raging over the right of succession of the Greatest
Noble.

Nevertheless, there were two thousand fighting men in the village--well,
two thousand men at any rate, and they would certainly all fight,
although some were rather young and a few were too old for any really
hard fighting. On the other hand, it would probably not come to that,
since the strangers were outnumbered by at least three to one.

The chieftain gave his orders for the defense of the village.

* * * * *

The invading Earthmen approached the small town cautiously from the
west. The commander had his men spread out a little, but not so much
that they could be separated. He saw the aliens grouped around the
square, boxlike buildings, watching and waiting for trouble.

"We'll give them trouble," the commander whispered softly. He waited
until his troops were properly deployed, then he gave the signal for the
charge.

The carriers went in first, thundering directly into the massed alien
warriors. Each carrier-man fired a single shot from his power weapon,
and then went to work with his carrier, running down the terrified
aliens, and swinging a sword with one hand while he guided with the
other. The commander went in with that first charge, aiming his own
carrier toward the center of the fray. He had some raw, untrained men
with him, and he believed in teaching by example.

The aliens recoiled at the onslaught of what they took to be horrible
living monsters that were unlike anything ever seen before.

Then the commander's infantry charged in. The shock effect of the
carriers had been enough to disorganize the aliens, but the battle was
not over yet by a long shot.

There were yells from other parts of the village as some of the other
defenders, hearing the sounds of battle, came running to reinforce the
home guard. Better than fifteen hundred men were converging on the spot.

The invading Earthmen moved in rapidly against the armed natives,
beating