Chapter 4
The small fighting ship lifted swiftly from the surface of Kandar. As itrose, the sky turned dark and the sun's brilliant disk, far too brightto be looked at with unshielded eyes, became a blazing furnace thatcould roast unshielded flesh. Stars appeared, shining myriads despitethe sun, with every one vivid against a background of black. Theplanet's surface became a half-ball, of which a part lay in darkness.
"_Co-o-ntact!_" said a voice through many speakers placed throughout thefighting ship's hull.
There was the rushing sound of compartment doors closing. Then acushioned silence everywhere, save for the faint, standby scratchingsounds that loudspeakers always emit.
Screens lighted. A speck moved among the stars.
"_Prepare counter-missiles_," said the voice. "_Proximity and track.Fire only as missiles appear._"
The moving speck flamed and was again only a moving speck. It ejectedsomething which hurtled toward the ship just up from Kandar.
"_Intercept one away!_" said a confident voice.
The last-launched missile fled toward the first moving speck,diminishing as it went. It swung suddenly, off course.
"_Fire two!_" snapped somebody somewhere.
Another object hurtled away toward the stars.
"_Fire three! Fire four!_"
Far away, something came plunging toward the ship. It did not travel ina straight line. It curved. It was not reasonable for a missile totravel in a curved line. The interceptor missiles had to detect it,swing to intercept, to accelerate furiously. The first interceptormissed. Worse, it had lost its target. It went wandering vaguely amongthe stars and was gone.
The second missed. The voice in the speaker seemed to crack.
"_Fire all missiles! They're turning too late! Pull 'em up ahead of thedamned thing!_"
The deadly contrivances plunged away and further away into emptiness.The third interceptor missed. The fourth. Tiny specks moved gracefullyon the radar screen. There was something coming toward the ship that hadrisen from Kandar. The tracer-trails of missiles appeared against thestars. They made very pretty parabolas. That was all. The thing that wascoming left a tracer-trail too. It curved preposterously. The just-risenship furiously flung missiles at it. It did not dodge. But none of thetracer-trails intersected its own. All of them passed to its rear.
For the fraction of a second it was visible as an object instead of aspeck. That object swelled.
It went by. Bors's voice, relayed, said,
"_Coup! You're out of action. Right?_"
The skipper of the ship just up from Kandar said grudgingly, "Hell, yes!We threw fifteen missiles at it, and missed with every one! This ismagic! Can we all have this before the Mekinese get here?"
"_I hope so_," said Bors's voice. "_We're trying hard, anyhow. Will youreport to ground?_"
"_Right_," said the speakers in the ship which had just fired fifteenmissiles without a hit or interception. "_Off._"
And then the compartment doors opened again and the normal sounds of asmall fighting ship in space began again.
An hour later, aground, Bors said impatiently, "Half a dozen ships havechecked out with me. I sent a single dummy-warhead missile at each one.They knew I was trying something new. They tried interceptors. Not oneworked. Worse, my missiles drew the interceptors off-course so they losttheir original aim on the _Isis_. Missiles set for variable accelerationnot only can't be intercepted but they draw interceptors off-course andare super-interceptors themselves. I fired one dummy warhead at eachtarget-ship. I got six hits with six missiles. They fired an average oftwelve missiles against each of mine. They got no intercepts or hitswith seventy-two tries! This appears to me a very gratifying developmentfor the situation we're in."
The bearded man who'd plumped for negotiation, earlier, now spokeindignantly in the War Council.
"Why wasn't this revealed earlier? We could have made a demonstrationand Mekin would have been wary of issuing an ultimatum! Why was thisconcealed until it was too late to use in negotiations with them?"
"It wasn't available until today," Bors answered. "It was tried, and itworked."
An admiral said slowly, "As I understand it, this is a proposal ofthe--hm--Talents, Incorporated people."
"No," said Bors. "We got the idea but couldn't do the math. Talents,Incorporated did the computations to make the missiles hit."
"Why? Why let them do the math? There may be a counter to this device.Perhaps Talents, Incorporated, was sent to us to get us to adopt thisfreakish trick."
"Talents, Incorporated," said Bors, "enabled us to smash a submergedMekinese cruiser. In giving us the necessary information, Talents,Incorporated kept the Mekinese from wiping out our space-fleet. Talents,Incorporated-- Oh, the devil!"
The admiral gazed about him.
"This--device," he said precisely, "is not a tried and standard weapon.On the other hand, the sally of our fleet is not war. Because of ourcivilian population we cannot make war on Mekin! The defiance of ourfleet will be a gesture only--a splendid gesture, but no more. It shouldbe a dignified gesture. It would be most inappropriate for our fleet totake to space, ostensibly to say that it prefers death to surrender, andfor it then to unveil a new and eccentric device which would say thatthe fleet was foolish enough to hope that a gadget would save it fromdying and Kandar from conquest. The fleet action should be fought withscorn of odds. It should end its existence in a manner worthy of itstraditions!"
Bors exploded, "Damnit--"
King Humphrey held up his hand and said fretfully, "As I remember it,Admiral, you have been assigned to hold together the defenseforces--those who either did not insist on going with the fleet, or forwhom there was no room--who have to be surrendered. You talk ofgestures. But the young men who will go out in the fleet are not goingthere to make gestures! They simply and furiously hate Mekin for what itis about to do. They are going out to kill as many Mekinese as they canbefore they, themselves, are killed. They would call your speechnonsense. And I would agree with them."
Bors said respectfully, "Yes, Majesty. It may also be said that copiesof the first Talents, Incorporated launching-data tables have alreadybeen distributed to the missile crews throughout the fleet. More arebeing distributed as fast as Logan calculates them. I don't think youcan keep our ships from trying the new missiles when the fightingstarts!"
Indignantly, the bearded man said, "I protest! This is a War Council! Ifthe council is to be lectured by strangers and if its orders won't beobeyed, why hold it?"
"Why, indeed?" King Humphrey looked sternly about the council-table.Sternness did not become him, but dignity did. He said with dignity,"You who are to stay here have to think of dealing with a victoriousMekin. We who are to go have to think of making our defeat count. Thereis no point in further discussion. The fleet will take off immediately."
He rose from his seat. The bearded man protested, "But the Mekinesearen't here yet! They won't arrive until day after tomorrow!"
"You're using Talents, Incorporated information," objected Bors. "And itis wise for the fleet to move off-planet at once! You are reasonablemen. Too reasonable! Nothing can destroy a nation so quickly as for itto fall into the hands of practical, hard-headed, reasonable men who actupon the best scientific data and the opinions of the best experts! Thathappened on Tralee, and my uncle and myself are exiles and Tralee issubjugated in consequence. But I am beginning to have hope for Kandar!"
He followed King Humphrey out of the council-room. Fleet admiralsbrought up the rear. The stodgy, dumpy figure of the king trampedonward. It became obvious that he was bound for the ground-cars thatwaited to take him and those who would follow him to the launching areaof the fleet.
A lean, gray, vice-admiral fell into step beside Bors.
"You don't think things are hopeless, Captain?" he asked curiously. "Idon't see the shred of a chance for us. But my whole life's been in thefleet. Under Mekin I'd be drafted to work in a factory or serve as anunder-officer on a guard-ship, one or the other!
I'd rather end in agood fight. How can you have hope?"
Bors said grimly, "I'm not sure that I have. But I can't believe thatnations can be saved by reasonable, practical men. They aren't made bythem! I've no hope except that acting foolishly may be wisdom. Sometimesit is."
"Ha!" The vice-admiral grinned wryly. "But fortunes are made bybusinessmen, and only history by heroes. No sensible man is ever a hero.But, like you, I don't like practical men."
They went out-of-doors. The king climbed sturdily into a ground-car. Ithummed away. There was a sort of ordered confusion, and then otherground-cars began to stream away from the palace.
Morgan appeared and waved to Bors. He hesitated, and Morgan pointed toan unofficial vehicle. Inside, Gwenlyn was smiling cheerfully at Bors.He found himself returning the smile, and allowed himself to be guidedto her. The ground-car rolled swiftly after the others.
"I've a little more Talents, Incorporated information," said Morgan."It's written down for you to read when you get to wherever you'regoing. It's rather important. Please be sure to read it fairly soon, itmay affect the fight."
"I'm headed for the fleet," said Bors. "Take me there, will you? Iwanted to say something before I left, anyhow."
Morgan waved his hand.
"I can guess," he said blandly. "Deepest gratitude and all that, but therush of events blocked any way to arrange a suitable recompense for whatTalents, Incorporated has done."
Bors blinked. "That's the substance of what I meant to say," headmitted.
"We'll take it up later," Morgan told him. "We'll get in touch with youafter the battle."
"I doubt it," said Bors. "I'm not likely to be around."
Gwenlyn laughed a little.
"What's so amusing?" asked Bors. "I don't mean to strike an attitude,but I do hate everything Mekin stands for, and I've a chance to throw abrick at it. The price may be high but throwing the brick is necessary!"
"We," said Gwenlyn, "have Talents, Incorporated information, some ofwhich is in that letter Father gave you. Our Department for PredictingDirty Tricks has been busy. You'll see. But we've other information,too."
Bors frowned at her. He put the letter away.
"More information--and you'll see me after the fight. You're not tellingme you know the future?"
Morgan waved a cigar.
"Of course not! That's nonsense! If one knew the future, one couldchange it, and then it wouldn't be what one knew! You haven't had anyprophecies from me! Prophecy's absurd! All we've told you is aboutevents whose probability approaches unity."
"But--"
"What Father means," Gwenlyn told him, "is that you can't be toldbeforehand about anything you can prevent, because if you can prevent ityou can make your knowledge false. So it isn't knowledge. What we wantto say, though, is that we aren't through."
"Why not?"
"I'm going to retire," said Morgan blandly. "But I want to do somethingfirst that I can gloat over later."
"He wants," added Gwenlyn, "to repose in the satisfaction of hisvanity." She laughed again at her father's expression.
"Seriously, Captain, we wanted to give you the letter and to ask you notto be surprised if we turn up somewhere. There's a Talent," she added,"a young boy who can find people. He doesn't know how he does it,but.... We'll find you!"
The ground-car turned in at the fleet's take-off ground. The normalinterstellar traffic of a planet, of course, was handled by a spaceport,with ships brought down to ground and lifted out to space again by theforce-fields generated in a giant landing-grid. But a war-fleet couldnot depend solely on ground installations. The fighting ships of Kandarwere allowed to use the planet's spaceport only for special reasons.Emergency rocket take-offs and landings were necessary training for warconditions anyhow. So the take-off ground was pitted and scarred withburnt-over circles, where no living thing grew and where very often theclay beneath the humus top-layer was vitrified by rocket-flames.
A guard at the gate brought the ground-car to a halt.
"War alert," said Bors. "Only known officers and men admitted here. It'snot worth arguing about."
He got out of the car and shook hands.
"I still regret," he told Morgan, "that we've had no chance to dosomething in return for the information you've given us." To Gwenlyn hesaid obscurely, "I'm glad I didn't know you sooner."
He turned and walked briskly into the fenced-off area. Behind him,Morgan looked inquisitively at his daughter.
"What was that he just said?"
"He's glad he didn't know me sooner," said Gwenlyn. She looked smuglypleased. "Considering everything, it was a very nice thing to say. Ilike him even if he doesn't smile."
Morgan did not seem enlightened. "It doesn't make sense to me."
"That's because you are my father," said Gwenlyn. She stirredrestlessly. She was no longer smiling. "I hope Talents, Incorporatedinformation isn't wrong this time! Remember, we heard on Norden that thedictator of Mekin consults fortune-tellers!"
"Ah!" said her father. "But they're only fortune-tellers!"
"One could be a Talent," said Gwenlyn worriedly, "maybe without evenknowing it."
There came a far-distant, roaring sound. Something silvery andglistening rose swiftly toward the sky. It dwindled to a speck. Therewere more roarings. Three more silvery, glistening objects flungthemselves heavenward, leaving massive trails of seemingly solid smokebehind them. Then there were bellowings. Larger ships rose up. As thedin of their rising began to diminish, there were louder, boominguproars and other silvery objects seemed to fling themselves toward thesky.
Then thunder rolled, and huge shapes plunged in their turn toward theheavens. The space-fleet of Kandar left its native world. It departed inthe formation used for space maneuvering, much like the tacticaldisposition of a column of marching soldiers in doubtful territory.There was a "point" in advance of all the rest, to be the first todetect or be fired on by an enemy. Then flankers reached straight out,and to the right and left, and then an advance-guard, and then the mainforce with a rear-guard behind it.
The take-off area became invisible under a monstrous, roiling mountainof smoke, from which threads of vapor reached to emptiness. It becameimpossible to hear oneself talk; it was unlikely that one could haveheard a shot, as the heavy ships took off. But presently there were onlylesser clamors and then mere roarings after them, and the last of therocket-boomings died away. The smoke remained, rolling very slowlyaside. Then there were unexpected detonations. As the rocket-fume mistdissolved, the detonations were explained. Every building in the fleet'shome area, the sunken fuel-tanks, the giant rolling gantries--every bitof ground equipment for the servicing of the fleet was methodically andcarefully being blown to bits. The fleet was not expected back.
The ships rose above the atmosphere, and rose still higher, and theplanet Kandar became a gigantic ball which filled an enormous part ofthe firmament. Then there were cracklings of communicators, and ordersflittered through emptiness in scrambled and re-scrambled broadcasts ofgibberish which came out as lucid commands in the control-rooms of theships. Then, first, the point, then the advanced flankers, and then themain fleet, line by line and rank by rank--every ship drove on outwardunder top-speed solar-system drive.
The last of the four chartered space-liners, come to take refugees awaybefore the Mekinese arrived, saw the disappearance of the ships in therear of the fleet's formation. The liner was lowered to the ground bythe landing-grid. It reported what it had seen. Those who were entitledto depart on it crowded aboard. With the fleet gone, panic began.
Morgan had to spend lavishly to get copies of the news reports that theliner had brought along as a matter of course. He took them back to the_Sylva_, where a frowning man with rings on his fingers read them withdark suspicion. Presently, triumphantly, he dictated predictions ofdirty tricks from indications in the news.
Morgan returned to what he'd called the family room of the yacht. Herelaxed. Gwenlyn tried to read. She did not succeed. She was excessivelynervou
s.
Bors was not. The fleet re-formed itself well out from Kandar. It madefor a rendezvous over a pole of the gas-giant planet which was thefourth planet from Kandar's sun. It was almost, but not quite in linewith that yellow star toward the base, from which the Mekinese flotillawould come. The fleet went into a polar orbit around that giganticplanet, which was useless to mankind because its atmosphere was partlygaseous ammonia and partly methane.
The cosmos paid no attention. An unstable sol-type star in Cygnuscollapsed abruptly and a number of otherwise promising planets becameunfit for human exploitation. In Andromeda, a super-nova flared. Thelight of its explosion would not reach Kandar for very many thousands ofyears. The largest comet in the galaxy reached perihelion, andpractically outshone the sun it circled. Nobody saw it, because nobodylived there. On a dreary, red-sky planet in Mousset, a thing squirmedheavily out of a stagnant sea and blinked stupidly at the remarkableabove-water cosmos it had discovered. Suns flamed and spouted flares.Small dark stars became an infinitesimal fraction of a degree colder.There was a magnetic storm in the photosphere of a sun which was notsupposed to have such things.
The war-fleet of Kandar, in very fine formation, flowed in its polarorbit around the fourth planet out from Kandar's sun. In carefullyscrambled and re-scrambled communications, certain ships were authorizedto modify the settings of Mark 13 missiles in this exact fashion, toremove their warheads, and to diverge in pairs from the fleet proper.They were to familiarize themselves with the results of making theacceleration of such missiles variable during flight. They would use thesupplied data-tables to compute firing constants for given ranges andrelative speeds. They would, of course, return to formation to permitother ships the same practice with the new method of missile handling.
Bors read the letter from Talents, Incorporated. It gave an exact timefor the breakout of the Mekinese fleet. The rest consisted mostly ofspecific warnings from the Talents, Incorporated Department forPredicting Dirty Tricks. It listed certain things to be looked for amongthe ships of the fleet. The information was like the news of an enemyship aground on Kandar; it was self-evidently plausible once one thoughtof it. Mekin was ruled and its military practices governed by men withthe instincts of conspirators, using other men with thepsychopathological impulses which make for spies. They thought ofdevices neither statesmen nor fighting men would have invented. But aparanoid Talent could think of them, and know that they were true.
As a result of the warnings, the flagship was found to have been somehowequipped, by Mekin, with a tiny, special microwave transmitter whichused a frequency not usual on Kandar. It was, in effect, a radio beaconon which enemy missiles could home. Also, the lead ship of acruiser-squadron had been mysteriously geared to reveal its exactposition, course and speed while in space. There were other concealeddevices. Some would make the controls of predetermined ships uselesswhen beams of specific frequency and form were trained upon them.
Once the basic idea was discovered, it was possible to make sure thatall such enemy-supplied equipment was out of operation. The fleet wasstill in no promising situation, with a ten-to-one disadvantage. But itcould not have put up even the beginning of a fight, had thesespy-installed devices remained undiscovered.
Bors said carefully, by scrambled and re-scrambled communicator,"Majesty, I'm beginning to be less than despairing. If they expect ourships either to have been destroyed aground, or to be made helpless theinstant combat begins, we may give them a shock. We hoped to smash themship for ship. Finding out their tricks in advance may give us that! Andif our missiles work as they've promised, we may get two for one!"
King Humphrey's voice was dogged. "_I will settle for anything butsurrender! From an honorable enemy I would take severe terms rather thansee my spacemen die. But I would do nobody any good by yielding toMekin!_"
Bors clicked off. He looked at a clock. The prediction from Talents,Incorporated was that the Mekinese fleet would break out of overdrive at11.19 hours astronomical time.
He went over his ship. His crew was by no means depressed. There hadbeen a terrific lift in spirits when dummy-warheaded missiles madetheoretic hits, though fifteen interceptors tried to stop them. Thecrewmen now tended elaborately to explain the process. A part of thetrick was the curved path along which the re-set missiles flashed. Suchcourses alone could never be computed by an unwarned enemy under battleconditions. But the all-important thing was that the missiles changedtheir acceleration as they drove. That couldn't be solved and thesolution put into practice during one fleet-action. Once the enemy hadexperienced it, they could later duplicate it without doubt, but itwould still be impossible to counter.
So Bors's men were cheerful to the point of gaiety. They would fightmagnificently because they were thinking of what they would do to theenemy instead of what the enemy might do to them. If enemy crews hadbeen assured that the fleet was half defeated before the fight began, tofind the fleet not crippled by spy-set devices would be startling. Tofind them fighting like fiends would be alarming. And if--Bors grimlyrepeated to himself, _if_--the modified missiles worked as well inbattle as in target practice....
He turned in and, despite his tensions, fell asleep immediately andslept soundly. When he awoke he felt curiously relaxed. It took him amoment to realize he had dreamed about Gwenlyn. He couldn't rememberwhat he had dreamed, but he knew it was comfortable and good. Hewouldn't let himself dwell on it, however. There was work to be done.
It was singularly like morning on a planet. The ship was spotless,immaculate. There was the fresh smell of growing things in the air. Tosave tanked oxygen the air-room used vegetation to absorb CO{2} andexcess moisture from the breathing of the crew. There was room to spareeverywhere, because unlike aircraft and surface ships, the size of aspace-ship made no difference in its speed. There was no resistance dueto size. Only the mass counted. So there was spaciousness and freshnessand something close to elation on Bors's ship on the day it was to fightfor the high satisfaction of getting killed.
Bors saw to it that his men breakfasted heartily.
"We've got a party ahead," he told the watch at mess. "Eat plenty butgive the other watch a chance to fill up, too."
Somebody said cheerfully, "The condemned men ate a hearty breakfast,sir?"
Bors grinned.
"The breakfast we can be sure of. The condemned part--we'll havesomething to say about that. Some Mekinese wouldn't have good appetitesif they knew what's ahead of them. One word! Don't waste missiles! Thereare a lot of Mekin ships. We've got to make each missile count!"
There was laughter. He went to the control room. He checked with theclock. Shortly after the other watch was back at its stations hecalculated carefully. The enemy fleet would break out of overdriveshort of Kandar, of course. It would have broken out once before, tocorrect its line and estimate the distance to its destination. It wouldhave assembled itself at that breakout point, but it would still arrivein a disorderly mob. One's point of arrival could not be too closelyfigured at the high speeds of overdrive. So when the Mekinese came, theywould not be in formation.
Bors called the flagship, when the gas-giant planet was in line and abarrier against the radio waves. King Humphrey's voice came from thespeaker by Bors's side.
"_Bors? What?_"
"Majesty," said Bors. "Talents, Incorporated says the enemy fleet willbreak out of overdrive in just about ten minutes. We're out here waitingfor it, instead of aground as they'll expect. They'll break out incomplete confusion. Even with great luck, they'll lose time assemblinginto combat formation. Being out here, we may be able to hit them beforethey're organized."
A pause.
"_I've been discussing tactics with the high command_," said the king'svoice. "_There's some dispute. The classic tactic is to try forenglobement._"
"I want to point out, Majesty," Bors interrupted urgently, "that when wecross the north pole again, we're apt to detect the fleet signallingfrantically to itself, sorting itself out, trying to get into some sortof order. It'll be s
tirred up as if with a spoon. But if we come aroundthe planet's pole--and they don't expect us to be out here waiting forthem--we'll be in combat-ready formation. We may be able to tear intothem as an organized unit before they can begin to co-operate with eachother."
A longer pause. Then King Humphrey said grimly;
"_There is one weak point in your proposal, Bors. Only one. It is thatTalents, Incorporated may be wrong about the time of breakout. The moreI think, the less I believe in what they have done, or even what I saw!But we'll be prepared, however unlikely your idea. We'll be ready._"
He clicked off. Only minutes later, the combat-alert order came through.In the next ten minutes, Bors's ship hummed for five, was quiet forthree, and then, two minutes early, all inner compartment doors closedquietly and there was that muffled stillness which meant that everybodywas ready for anything that might happen.
In the control room, Bors watched out of a direct-vision port, givingoccasional glances to the screens. There were flecks of light frominnumerable stars. Then the shining cloud-bank of the gas-giant planetwent black. Screens showed all of the fleet--each blip with a nimbusabout it which identified it as a friend, not a foe. There was the blipof the leading ship, the "point" of the formation. There were theflanking ships and all the martial array of the fleet.
Then the screens sparkled with seemingly hundreds of blips which seemedto swirl and spin and whirl again in total and disordered confusion.
Gongs clanged. A voice said, "_Co-o-ntact! Enemy fleet ahead. Widedispersion. They're milling about like gnats on a sunny day!_"
A curt and authoritative and well-recognized voice snapped, "_All shipskeep formation on flagship. Course coordinates...._" The voice gavethem. "_There's a clump of enemy ships beginning to organize! We hitthem!_"
The fleet of Kandar came around the gas-giant world and flung itself atthe fleet of Mekin. It seemed that everything was subject to intolerabledelay. For long, sweating, unbearable minutes nothing happened exceptthat the fleet of Kandar went hurtling through space with no sensationor direct evidence of motion. The gas-giant planet dwindled, but notvery fast. The bright specks on the screens which were enemy shipsseemed to separate as they drew nearer. But all happened with infiniteand infuriating deliberation.
It was worth waiting for. There was truly a clumping of enemy shipsahead. Some of them were less than ten miles apart. In atwo-hundred-mile sphere there were forty ships. They'd been moving toconsolidate themselves into a mutually assisting group. What theyaccomplished was the provision of a fine accumulation of targets. Beforethey could organize themselves, the Kandarian fleet swept through them.It vastly outnumbered them in this area.
It smashed them. Bombs flashed in emptiness. There were gas-clouds andsmoke-clouds which stayed behind in space as the fleet went on.
"_New coordinates_," said the familiar authoritative voice. It gavethem. "_There's another enemy condensation. We hit it!_"
The fleet swung in space. It drove on and on and on. Interminable timepassed. Then there were flashes brighter than the stars. A Kandarcruiser blew up soundlessly. But far, far away other things detonated,and what had been proud structures of steel and beryllium, armed andmanned, became mere incandescent vapor.
A third clumping of Mekinese ships. The Kandarian fleet overwhelmed it;overrode it; used exactly the tactics the Mekinese might have used. Itruthlessly made use of its local, concentrated strength. It wasoutnumbered in the whole battle area by not less than ten to one. Butthe Mekinese fleet was scattered. Where it struck, the Kandarian fleetwas four and five, and sometimes twenty, ships to one.
It was a smaller fleet in every class of ships, but it was compact andcontrolled and it made slashing plunges through the dispersed andconfused enemy. With ordinary missiles three ships could always destroytwo, and four could destroy three. But in the battle of the gas-giantplanet, where there was fighting the Kandarians were never less than twoto one. They were surrounded by enemies, but when those enemies tried togather together for strength, the mass of murderously-fighting ships ofKandar swung upon the incipient group and blasted it.
Nearly half the Mekinese fleet was out of action before Bors's shipfired a single missile. He'd sat in the skipper's chair, and from timeto time, the course of all the fleet was changed, and he saw that hisship kept its place rigidly in formation. But he had given not one orderout of routine before the enemy strength was half gone. Then thecommunicator said coldly:
"_All ships attention! With old-style missiles we could do everythingwe've accomplished so far. But the Mekinese are refusing battle now.They'll begin to slip away in overdrive if we keep chopping them down ingroups. We have to give them a chance or they'll run away. The newmissile system works perfectly. All ships break formation. Find your ownMekinese. Blast them!_"
Bors said in a conversational voice, "There are three Mekin shipsyonder. They look like they're willing to start something. We'll takethem on."
He pointed carefully to a spot on the screen. His small ship swung awayfrom the rest of the fleet. It plunged toward a battleship and two heavycruisers who had joined forces and appeared to attempt to rally thestill-stronger-than-Kandar invaders.
They became objects rather than specks upon the screens. They werevisible things on the direct-vision ports. Something flashed, and rushedtoward the little Kandarian space-can.
"Fire one, two, three," Bors ordered.
Things hurtled on before him. A screen showed that the missiles firstfired by the enemy went off-course, chasing the later-fired missilesfrom the _Isis_. The Mekinese shots had automatically becomeinterceptors when Kandarian missiles attacked their parent ships. Butthey couldn't anticipate a curved course and their built-in computersweren't designed to handle a rate of change of acceleration. The threeMekinese ships ceased to exist.
"Let's head yonder," said Bors.
He pointed again, on the screen. Within the radar's range there werehundreds of tiny blips. Some were marked with a nimbus apiece. They werefriends. Many, many more were not.
The Mekinese fleet, too, could determine its own numbers in comparisonto the defending fleet. Pride and rage swept through Mekinesecommanders, as they saw the Kandarians deliberately break up theirformation to get their ships down to the level of the enemy. It wasunthinkable for a Mekinese ship to refuse single combat! And when twoand three could combine against a single ship of Kandar....
The invaders had reason to fight, rather than slip into overdrive. Theystill outnumbered the ships from Kandar. And for a Mekinese commander toflee the battle area without having engaged or fired on an antagonistwould be treason. No man who fled without fighting would stay alive.There had to be a recording of battle offered or accepted, or theespecially merciless court-martial system of Mekin would take over.
There was one problem, however, for the Mekinese skippers. When theyengaged a ship from Kandar, they died. Still, no ship left the scene ofthe battle to report defeat.
It was absolute and complete. It was not only a defeat. It wasannihilation. The Mekinese fleet was destroyed to the last ship, even tothe armed transports carrying bureaucrats and police to set up a newgovernment on Kandar. Those ships which dared not run away without atoken fight, discovered the fleet of Kandar wasn't fighting a tokenbattle. It had started out to be just that, but somehow the plans hadchanged when the fighting started. For the aggressors, it was disaster.
When his fleet reassembled, King Humphrey issued a general order to allships. He read it in person, his voice strained and dead and hopeless.
"_I have to express my admiration for the men of my fleet_," he saiddrearily. "_An unexampled victory over unexampled odds is not only inkeeping with the best traditions of the armed forces of Kandar, butraises those traditions to the highest possible level of valor anddevotion. If it were not that in winning this victory we have doomed ourhome world to destruction, I would be as happy as I am, reluctantly,proud...._"
_Part Two_