"Not any more, we aren't." There was a chuckle. "Don't sound so shocked,
Admiral; we understand you're in mutiny yourself."
Tulan slapped the microphone onto its hangar. He sat, angry and
bewildered, until he remembered something, then buzzed Communications.
"Get me that connection again. Hello? Listen. I have sixty thousand
troops in transports, with almost no food. I intend to land them."
"They're welcome as noncombatants, Admiral. They'll have to land
disarmed, in areas we designate, and live off the country. We've already
got more refugees than we can handle."
"Refugees from where?"
"Haven't you been in contact with Sennech at all?"
"No."
"Oh." There was a thoughtful pause. "Then you don't know. There's bad
radiation in the atmosphere and we're hauling as many away as we can. We
can use your ships if you're finished playing soldier."
Tulan broke the connection again and turned, fuming, to Jezef. "We'll
blast our way in and take over!"
Jezef raised his eyebrows. "What good would that do?" he asked.
"Why; they--for one thing, we've got to think of those troops! We can't
land them unarmed and let them be slaughtered by the savages!"
Jezef grinned. "I doubt if they'll refuse to let them have enough small
arms to defend themselves. They can't stay where they are."
"But they're military men, and loyal!"
"Are they? The war's over for them, anyway. Why not let them vote on
it?"
Tulan jumped up and strode around the command room, while Jezef and the
staff watched him silently. Gradually, the logic of it forced itself
upon him. "All right," he said wearily, "We'll let them vote."
* * * * *
A few hours later he studied the results gloomily. "Well, after all,
they're not Fleet. They don't have the tradition."
Jezef smiled, then lingered, embarrassed.
"Well?" Tulan asked.
"Sir," (that hadn't come out, in private, for years) "I'd like to be
relieved."
It was a blow, but Tulan found he wasn't really surprised. He stared at
his brother-in-law, feeling as if he faced an amputation. "You think I'm
wrong about this whole thing, don't you?"
"I'm not going to judge that, but Sennech's in trouble far worse than
any question of politics, including your own family."
"But if we turn back now Coar will recover! It's only going to take us a
few more hours!"
"How long does it take people to die?"
Tulan looked at the deck for a while. "All right. I'll detach every
ship I can spare, and put you in charge. You'll have the transports too,
as soon as they're unloaded." He stared after Jezef, wanting to call out
to him to be sure to send word about Anatu and the boys, but somehow
feeling he didn't have the right.
* * * * *
He took the fighting ships away from Teyr, to where Group Two could join
up without being unmasked, then started sunward as if he were crossing
to intercept Coar. A few miles in, where they'd be hidden in the sun, he
left a few scouts.
As he saw it, the enemy commander on the satellite, noting the armada's
course and finding himself apparently clear, would have no choice but to
lift his ships and start around the sun by some other path to help his
planet.
That other path to Coar could be intercepted, and as soon as Tulan was
lost near the sun he went into heavy drive to change direction. He
drifted across the sun, waiting for word from his scouts. At about the
time he'd expected, they reported ships leaving the satellite.
He looked across the room toward Plot. "Plot! Feed that data to
Communications as it comes in, will you?" And to Communications: "Can we
beam Group Three from here?"
"Not quite, sir; but I can relay through the scouts."
"All right; but make sure it's not intercepted. I want Group Three under
maximum acceleration for Luhin, and I want them to get running reports
on the enemy."
"Right, sir."
Tulan was in the position he wanted, not needing to use his own radar,
but able to pick up that of Coar's fleet at extreme range, too far to
give them a bounce. He'd know their course, speed, and acceleration
fairly well, without even being suspected himself.
He held that position until the enemy was close enough to get a bounce,
then went into drive on an intercepting course.
One of the basic tenets of space maneuver was this: if two fleets were
drawing together, with radar contact, neither (barring interference from
factors such as the sun or planets) could escape the other; for if one
applied acceleration in any direction the other could simply match it
(human endurance being the limitation) and maintain the original
relative closing speed.
When the enemy commander discovered Tulan's armada loafing ahead of
him, he'd been accelerating for about ten hours and had a velocity of a
million miles per hour, while Tulan was going the same direction but at
half the speed. The quarry began decelerating immediately, knowing it
could get back to Luhin with time enough to land.
Tulan didn't quite match the deceleration, preferring to waste a few
hours and lessen the strain on his crews. He let the gap close slowly.
He could tell almost the precise instant when the other jaw of his trap
was discovered, for Plot, Communications, and Intelligence all jerked up
their heads and looked at him. He grinned at them. What they'd picked up
would be an enemy beam from Luhin, recklessly sweeping space to find the
Coar fleet and warn it of the onrushing Group Three.
The enemy commander reacted fast. It was obvious he'd never beat Group
Three to Luhin, and he made no futile attempts at dodging, but reversed
drives and accelerated toward the nearest enemy, which was Tulan. Tulan
was not surprised at that either, for though Coar's fleets had bungled
the war miserably, when cornered they'd always fought and died like men.
He matched their acceleration to hold down the relative speeds. The
swift passing clash would be brief at best. He formed his forces into an
arrangement he'd schemed up long ago but never used: a flat disc of
lighter ships out in front, masking a doughnut-shaped mass behind. He
maneuvered laterally to keep the doughnut centered on the line of
approach.
* * * * *
Roboscouts appeared and blossomed briefly as they died. The fuzzy patch
of light on the screens swelled, then began to resolve into individual
points. The first missiles arrived. Intricate patterns of incandescence
formed and vanished as fire-control systems locked wits.
A sudden, brilliantly planned salvo came streaking in, saturating the
defenses along its path. Ships in Tulan's secondary formation swerved
frantically, but one darting, corkscrewing missile homed on a Heavy, and
for an instant there were two suns.
Tulan, missing Jezef's smooth help, was caught up in the daze and strain
of battle now. He punched buttons and shouted orders as he played the
fleet to match the enemy's subtle swerving. Another heavy salvo came
in, but the computers had its sources pinpointed now, and it was
contained. These first few seconds favored the enemy, who was only
fighting the light shield in front of Tulan's formation.
Now the swelling mass of blips streaked apart in the viewers and space
lit up with the fire and interception. Two ships met head on; at such
velocities it was like a nuclear blast.
Then Coar's ships crashed through the shield and into the center of the
doughnut. Ringed, outgunned, outpredicted, they hit such a concentration
of missiles that it might as well have been a solid wall. Ships
disintegrated as if on a common fuse; the ones that didn't take direct
hits needed none, in that debris-filled stretch of hell.
Tulan's flagship rocked in the wave of expanding hot gasses. There was a
jolt as some piece of junk hit her; if she hadn't already been under
crushing acceleration away from the inferno she'd have been holed.
From a safer distance the path of destruction was a bright slash across
space, growing into the distance with its momentum. It was annihilation,
too awful for triumph; there was only horror in it. Tulan knew that with
this overwhelming tactic he'd written a new text-book for action against
an inferior fleet. He hoped it would never be printed. Sweating and
weak, he slumped in his straps and was ill.
* * * * *
While brief repairs and re-arming were under way, he sent scouts
spiraling out to pick up any radio beams from Sennech or Teyr. There
were none. The telescopes showed Sennech's albedo down to a fraction of
normal; that, he supposed, would indicate smoke in the atmosphere. He
wavered, wondering whether he should detach more ships to send out
there. Reason and training told him to stick to the key objective, which
was Coar's surrender. He waited only for Group Three to achieve a
converging course, then started around the sun again.
They didn't encounter even a roboscout. He crossed the sun, curved into
Coar's orbit, matched speeds, and coasted along a million miles ahead of
the planet, sending light sorties in to feel out any ambushes. Still
there was no sign of fight, so he went in closer where the enemy could
get a good look at his strength. Finally he took a small group in boldly
over the fourth planet's Capitol and sent a challenge.
The answer was odd. "This is Acting President Kliu. What are your
intentions?"
Tulan realized he was holding his breath. He let it out and looked
around the silent command room, meeting the intent eyes of his staff. He
had an unreal feeling; this couldn't be the climax, the
consummation--this simple exchange over the radio. He lifted the
microphone slowly. "This is Admiral Tulan, commanding the Fleets of
Sennech. I demand your immediate and unconditional surrender."
There was something in the reply that might have been dry amusement:
"Oh; by all means; but I hope you're not going to insist upon an
elaborate ceremony. Right now we don't give a damn about the war; we're
worried about the race."
There was more silence, and Tulan turned, uncertainly, looking at the
bare spot where Jezef ought to be standing. He buzzed for
Communications. "Connect me with Captain Rhu. Rhu; I'm advancing you in
rank and leaving you in charge here. I'm going down to accept the
surrender and find out what this man's talking about."
* * * * *
Kliu was gaunt and middle-aged, wearing, to Tulan's surprise, the gray
of Coar's First Level of Science. He was neither abject nor hostile,
agreeing impatiently to turn over the secret of Coar's weapon and to
assist with a token occupation of the planet. Again Tulan had the
unreal, let-down feeling, and judging by Kliu's amused expression, it
showed.
Tulan sent couriers to get things started, then turned back to the
scientist. "So you have had a change of government. What did you mean,
about the race?"