“Override on the spray guns,” he announced into the mike before him. He looked at the instruments, but he saw in his imagination the dark and tumbling space suited bodies of the assault troops, and he thought of the several million tiny slivers of carbon steel that would go sleeting among them at the touch of his ringer. There was a slight pause before answering; and then the voice of Ordovya came back.
“Sir ... if you like, the gunmen say they’re used to handling the weapons—”
“Maintenanceman!” snapped Donal. “You heard the order. Override!”
“Override, sir.”
Donal looked at his scope. The computer had his targets in the gunsights. He pressed the button, and held it down.
Two hours later, the C4J, then in standby orbit, was ordered to return to rendezvous and its captain to report to his Sub-Patrol chief. At the same time came a signal for all Staff Liaisons to report to the flagship; and one for Staff Liaison Donal Graeme to report personally to Blue Patrol Chief Lludrow. Considering the three commands, Donal called Ordovya on the ship’s phone and directed him to take care of the first errand. He himself, he decided, could take care of the other two, which might—or might not—be connected.
Arriving at the flagship, he explained his situation to the Reception Officer, who made a signal both to the Staff Liaison people and to the Blue Patrol chief.
“You’re to go directly to Lludrow,” he informed Donal; and assigned him a guide.
Donal found Lludrow in a private office on the flagship that was not much bigger than Donal’s stateroom in the C4J.
“Good!” said Lludrow, getting up behind a desk as Donal came in and coming briskly around it. He waited until the guide had left, and then he put a dark hand on Donal’s arm.
“How’d your ship come through?” he asked.
“Navigating,” said Donal. “There was a direct hit on the control room though. All officers casualties.”
“All officers?” Lludrow peered sharply at him. “And you?”
“I took command, of course. There was nothing left, though, but antipersonnel mop-up.”
“Doesn’t matter,” said Lludrow. “You were Acting Captain for part of the action?”
“Yes.”
“Fine. That’s better than I hoped for. Now,” said Lludrow, “tell me something. Do you feel like sticking your neck out?”
“For any cause I can approve of, certainly,” answered Donal. He considered the smaller, rather ugly man; and found himself suddenly liking the Blue Patrol chief. Directness like this had been a rare experience for him, since he had left the Dorsai.
“All right. If you agree, we’ll both stick our necks out.” Lludrow looked at the door of the office, but it was firmly closed. “I’m going to violate top security and enlist you in an action contrary to Staff orders, if you don’t mind.”
“Top security?” echoed Donal, feeling a sudden coolness at the back of his neck.
“Yes. We’ve discovered what was behind this Newton-Cassida landing on Oriente ... you know Oriente?”
“I’ve studied it, of course,” said Donal. “At school—and recently when I signed with Freiland. Temperatures up to seventy-eight degrees centigrade, rock, desert, and a sort of native vine and cactus jungle. No large bodies of water worth mentioning and too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.”
“Right. Well,” said Lludrow, “the important point is, it’s big enough to hide in. They’re down there now and we can’t root them out in a hurry—and not at all unless we go down there after them. We thought they were making the landing as a live exercise and we could expect them to run the gauntlet back out in a few days or weeks. We were wrong.”
“Wrong?”
“We’ve discovered their reason for making the landing on Oriente. It wasn’t what we thought at all.”
“That’s fast work,” said Donal. “What’s it been ... four hours since the landing?”
“They made fast work of it,” said Lludrow. “The news is being sat on; but they are firing bursts of a new kind of radiation from projectors that fire once, move, and fire again from some new hiding place—a large number of projectors. And the bursts they fire hit old Sirius himself. We’re getting increased sunspot activity.” He paused and looked keenly at Donal, as if waiting for comment. Donal took his time, considering the situation.
“Weather difficulties?” he said at last.
“That’s it!” said Lludrow, energetically, as though Donal had been a star pupil who had just shone again. “Meteorological opinion says it can be serious, the way they’re going about it. And we’ve already heard their price for calling it off. It seems there’s a trade commission of theirs on New Earth right now. No official connection—but the Commission’s got the word across.”
Donal nodded. He was not at all surprised to hear that trade negotiations were going on in normal fashion between worlds who were at the same time actively fighting each other. That was the normal course of existence between the stars. The ebb and flow of trained personnel on a contractual basis was the lifeblood of civilization. A world who tried to go it on its own would be left behind within a matter of years, to wither on the vine—or at last buy the mere necessities of existence at ruinous cost to itself. Competition meant the trading of skilled minds, and that meant contracts, and contracts meant continuing negotiations.
“They want a reciprocal brokerage agreement,” Lludrow said.
Donal looked at him sharply. The open market trading of contracts had been abandoned between the worlds for nearly fifty years. It amounted to speculating in human lives. It removed the last shreds of dignity and security from the individual and treated him as so much livestock or hardware to be traded for no other reason than the greatest possible gain. The Dorsai, along with the Exotics, Mara and Kultis, had led the fight against it. There was another angle as well. On “tight” worlds such as those of the Venus Group—which included Newton and Cassida—and the Friendlies, the open market became one more tool of the ruling group; while on “loose” worlds like Freiland, it became a spot of vulnerability where foreign credits could take advantage of local situations. “I see,” said Donal.
“We’ve got three choices,” Lludrow said. “Give in—accept the agreement. Suffer the weather effects over a period of months while we clean out Oriente by orthodox military means. Or pay a prohibitive price in casualties by a crash campaign to clean up Oriente in a hurry. We’d lose as many lives to the conditions down there as we would to the enemy in a crash campaign. So, it’s my notion that it’s a time to gamble—my notion, by the way, not Staff’s. They don’t know anything about this; and wouldn’t stand for it if they did. Care to try your idea of throwing a scare into Newton, after all?”
“With pleasure!” said Donal, quickly, his eyes glowing.
“Save your enthusiasm until you hear what you’re going to have to do it with,” replied Lludrow, dryly. “Newton maintains a steady screen of ninety ships of the first class, in defensive orbit around it. I can give you five.”
Sub-Patrol Chief
“Five!” said Donal. He felt a small crawling sensation down his spine. He had, before Lludrow turned him down the first time, worked out rather carefully what could be done with Newton and how a man might go about it. His plan had called for a lean and compact little fighting force of thirty first-class ships in a triangular organization of three sub-patrols, ten ships to each.
“You see,” Lludrow was explaining, “it’s not what craft I have available—even with what losses we’ve just suffered, my Blue Patrol counts over seventy ships of the first class, alone. It’s what ships I can trust to you on a job where at least the officers and probably the men as well will realize that it’s a mission that should be completely volunteer and that’s being sneaked off when Staff’s back is turned. The captains of these ships are all strongly loyal to me, personally, or I couldn’t have picked them.” He looked at Donal. “All right,” he said. “I know it’s impossible. Just agree with me and
we can forget the matter.”
“Can I count on obedience?” asked Donal.
“That,” said Lludrow, “is the one thing I can guarantee you.”
“I’ll have to improvise,” said Donal. “I’ll go in with them, look at the situation, and see what can be done.”
“Fair enough. It’s decided then.”
“It’s decided,” said Donal.
“Then come along.” Lludrow turned and led him out of the office and through corridors to a lock. They passed through the lock to a small courier ship, empty and waiting for them there; and took it to a ship of the first class, some fifteen minutes off.
Ushered into the ship’s large and complex main control room. Donal found five senior captains waiting for him. Lludrow accepted a salute from a gray-haired powerful-looking man, who by saluting revealed himself as captain of this particular ship.
“Captain Bannerman,” said Lludrow, introducing him to Donal, “Captain Graeme.” Donal concealed a start well. In the general process of his thinking, he had forgotten that a promotion for himself would be necessary. You could hardly put a Staff Liaison with a field rank of commandant over men captaining ships of the first class.
“Gentlemen,” said Lludrow, turning to the other executive officers. “I’ve been forced to form your five ships rather hastily into a new Sub-Patrol unit. Captain Graeme will be your new chief. You’ll form a reconnaissance outfit to do certain work near the very center of the enemy space area; and I want to emphasize the point that Captain Graeme’s command is absolute. You will obey any and all of his orders without question. Now, are there any questions any of you would like to ask before he assumes command?”
The five captains were silent.
“Fine, then.” Lludrow led Donal down the line. “Captain Graeme, this is Captain Aseini.”
“Honored,” said Donal, shaking hands.
“Captain Sukaya-Mendez.”
“At your service, captain.”
“Captain El Man.”
“Honored,” said Donal. A scarred Dorsai face nearing forty looked at him. “I believe I know your family name, captain. High Island, isn’t it?”
“Sir, near Bridgehead,” answered El Man. “I’ve heard of the Graemes.” Donal moved on.
“And Captain Ruoul.”
“Honored.”
“Well, then,” said Lludrow, stepping back briskly. “I’ll leave the command in your hands, Captain Graeme. Anything in the way of special supplies?”
“Torpedoes, sir,” answered Donal.
“I’ll have Armaments Supply contact you,” said Lludrow, And left.
Five hours later, with several hundred extra torpedoes loaded, the five-ship Sub-Patrol moved out for deep space. It was Donal’s wish that they get clear of the home base as soon as possible and off where the nature of their expedition could not be discovered and countermanded. With the torpedoes, Lee had come aboard; Donal having remembered that his orderly had been left aboard the C4J. Lee had come through the battle very well, being strapped in his hammock harness throughout in a section of the ship that was undamaged by the hit that had pierced to the control room. Now, Donal had definite instructions for him.
“I want you with me, this time,” he said. “You’ll stay by me. I doubt very much I might need you; but if I do, I want you in sight.”
“I’ll be there,” said Lee, unemotionally.
They had been talking in the Patrol chief’s stateroom, which had been opened to Donal. Now, Donal headed for the main control room, Lee following behind. When Donal reached that nerve center of the ship, he found all three of the snip’s officers engaged in calculating the phase shift, with Bannerman overseeing.
“Sir!” said Bannerman as Donal came up. Looking at him, Donal was reminded of his mathematics instructor at school; and he was suddenly and painfully reminded of his own youth.
“About ready to shift?” asked Donal.
“In about two minutes. Since you specified no particular conclusion point, the computer run was a short one. We’ve merely been making the usual checks to make sure there’s no danger of collision with any object. A four light-year jump, sir.”
“Good,” said Donal. “Come here with me, Bannerman.”
He led the way over to the larger and rather more elaborate Control Eye that occupied the center of this control room; and pressed keys. A scene from the library file of the ship filled the globe. It showed a green-white planet with two moons floating in space and lit by the illumination from a G2 type sun.
“The orange and the two pips,” said Bannerman, revealing a moonless Freilander’s dislikes for natural planetary satellites.
“Yes,” said Donal. “Newton.” He looked at Bannerman. “How close can we hit it?”
“Sir?” said Bannerman, looking around at him. Donal waited, holding his eyes steady on the older man. Bannerman’s gaze shifted and dropped back to the scene in the Eye.
“We can come out as close as you want, sir,” he answered. “See, in deep space jumps, we have to stop to make observations and establish our location precisely. But the precise location of any civilized planet’s already established. To come out at a safe distance from their defenses, I’d say, sir—”
“I didn’t ask you for a safe distance from their defenses,” said Donal, quietly. “I said—how close?”
Bannerman looked up again. His face had not paled; but there was now a set quality about it. He looked at Donal for several seconds.
“How close?” he echoed. “Two planetary diameters.”
“Thank you, captain,” said Donal.
“Shift in ten seconds,” announced the First Officer’s voice; and began to count down. “Nine seconds—eight—seven—six—five—four—three—two—shift!” They shifted.
“Yes,” said Donal, as if the shift itself had never interrupted what he was about to say, “out here where it’s nice and empty, we’re going to set up a maneuver, and I want all the ships to practice it. If you’ll call a captain’s conference, captain.”
Bannerman walked over to the control board and put in the call. Fifteen minutes later, with all junior officers dismissed, they gathered in the privacy of the control room of Bannerman’s ship and Donal explained what he had in mind.
“In theory,” he said, “our Patrol is just engaged in reconnaissance. In actuality, we’re going to try to simulate an attacking force making an assault on the planet Newton.”
He waited a minute to allow the weight of his words to register on their minds; and then went on to explain his intentions.
They were to set up a simulated planet on their ship’s instruments. They would approach this planet, which was to represent Newton, according to a random pattern and from different directions, first a single ship, then two together, then a series of single ships—and so on. They would, theoretically, appear into phase just before the planet, fire one or more torpedoes, complete their run past the planet and immediately go out of phase again. The intention would be to simulate the laying of a pattern of explosions covering the general surface of the planet.
There was, however, to be one main difference. Their torpedoes were to be exploded well without the outer ring of Newton’s orbits of defense, as if the torpedoes were merely intended as a means to release some radiation or material which was planned to fall in toward the planet, spreading as it went.
And, one other thing, the runs were to be so timed that the five-ship force, by rotation, could appear to be a large fleet engaged in continuous bombardment.
“... Any suggestions or comments?” asked Donal, winding it up. Beyond the group facing him, he could see Lee, lounging against the control room wall and watching the captains with a colorless gaze.
There was no immediate response; and then Bannerman spoke up slowly, as if he felt it had devolved upon him, the unwelcome duty of being spokesman for the group.
“Sir,” he said, “what about the chances of collision?”
“They’ll be high, I know,”
said Donal. “Especially with the defending ships. But we’ll just have to take our chances.”
“May I ask how many runs we’ll be making?”
“As many,” said Donal, “as we can.” He looked deliberately around the group. “I want you gentlemen to understand. We’re going to make every possible attempt to avoid open battle or accidental casualties. But these things may not be avoidable considering the necessarily high number of runs.”
“How many runs did you have in mind, captain?” asked Sukaya-Mendez.
“I don’t see,” replied Donal, “how we can effectively present the illusion of a large fleet engaged in saturation bombardment of a world in under a full two hours of continuous runs.”
“Two hours!” said Bannerman. There was an instinctive murmur from the group. “Sir,” continued Bannerman. “Even at five minutes a run, that amounts with five ships to better than two runs an hour. If we double up, or if there’s casualties it could run as high as four. That’s eight phase shifts to an hour—sixteen in a two-hour period. Sir, even doped to the ears, the men on our ships can’t take that.”
“Do you know of anyone who ever tried, captain?” inquired Donal.
“No, sir—” began Bannerman.
“Then how do we know it can’t be done?” Donal did not wait for an answer. “The point is, it must be done. You’re being required only to navigate your ships and fire possibly two torpedoes. That doesn’t require the manpower it would to fight your ships under ordinary conditions. If some of your men become unfit for duty, make shift with the ones you have left.”
“Shai Dorsai!” murmured the scarred El Man; and Donal glanced toward him, as grateful for the support as for the compliment.
“Anyone want out?” Donal asked crisply.
There was a slow, but emphatic, mutter of negation from all of them.
“Right.” Donal took a step back from them. “Then let’s get about our practice runs. Dismissed, gentlemen.”